UROP Project

Tolerance engineering of Pseudomonas putida to organic solvents for the development of an in situ rhamnolipid extraction process

Due to excessive foam formation during the production of rhamnolipids in a fermentation process, it is desired to continously recover the rhamnolipids via in situ extraction. Although P. putida is comparatively tolerant to solvents by nature, it can be further engineered to enable the use of other promising extraction solvents. Here, different solvents will be tested for their biocompatibility to P. putida and the tolerance will be further enhanced, either by adaptive laboratory evolution and/or molecular biology. Optionally, the performance of the solvent will be tested in a fermentation process with integrated in situ extraction.

Task

- Biocompatibility assays of different, pre-selected solvents - Adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) to enhance the tolerance to promising solvents - Possibly molecular engineering of the solvent tolerance (e.g. introduction of efflux pumps) - Optional/time dependent: evaluation of the in situ extraction in a lab-scale fermentation process

Requirements

Background in Biotechnology/Biochemical Engineering/Molecular Biology/Microbiology or related