CRISPR Gene Perturbations Provide Insights for Improving Bacterial Biofuel Tolerance.

ABSTRACT: Economically-viable biofuel production is often limited by low levels of microbial tolerance to high biofuel concentrations. Here we demonstrate the first application of deactivated CRISPR perturbations of gene expression to improve Escherichia coli biofuel tolerance. We construct a library of 31 unique CRISPR inhibitions and activations of gene expression in E. coli and explore their impacts on growth during 10 days of exposure to n-butanol and n-hexane. We show that perturbation of metabolism and membrane-related genes induces the greatest impacts on growth in n-butanol, as does perturbation of redox-related genes in n-hexanes. We identify uncharacterized genes yjjZ and yehS with strong potential for improving tolerance to both biofuels. Perturbations demonstr

SUBMITTER: Otoupal PB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6131188 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature