Chiara Gandini
University of Torino, Italy
Title: Towards cellulose consolidated bioprocessing into biofuel through recombinant Clostridium cellulovoran: Detailed analysis of the central metabolism and development of optimized gene manipulation tools
Biography
Biography: Chiara Gandini
Abstract
Consolidated Bioprocessing (CBP) is a key feature of the so-called 3rd generation biorefinery consisting of cost-sustainable single-step (d irect) fermentation of cellulosic biomass into industrially rele vant products such as biofuels (notably, ethanol and or butanol). No natural microorganism isolated so far can produce biofuels directly from cellulose with the efficiency required by industrial processes. is an anaerobic bacterium among the most efficient plant biomass biodegraders. It efficiently hydrolyzes cellulose, xylan and pectin, but its main catabolites are Clostridium cellulovorans organic acids , while little ethanol is biosynthesized. The final aim of the present study is the development of recombinant ethanol and or butanol hyper producing C. cellulovorans strains by metabolic engineering. Achievement of this purpose is currently hampered by major hurdles. Nowadays, no detailed study on C. cellulovorans central metabolic pathways exists. Furthermore, no specific tools for C. cellulovorans chromosomal gene knock out/in are available. The present contribution was focused on the development of a model of the C. cellulovorans central metabolism by integration of metabolomics, transcriptomics and proteomics data. Attention was mainly given to comparison of C. cellulovorans metabolic network during growth on cellulose with respect to cells growing on soluble sugars. As far as the development of optimized gene tools for C. cellulovorans is concerned, different transformation protocols were compared. Furthermore, the ClosTron methodology was used as a basis for developing reliable protocol for gene integration in the C. cellulovorans chromosome. These results will be a key for future C. cellulovorans metabolic pathway engineering aimed at direct conversion of cellulose to biofuels.