Project description:Clostridium thermocellum is a promising CBP candidate organism capable of directly converting lignocellulosic biomass to ethanol. Low yields, productivities and growth inhibition prevent industrial deployment of this organism for commodity fuel production. Symptoms of potential redox imbalance such as incomplete substrate utilization, and fermentation products characteristic of overflow metabolism, have been observed during growth. This perceived redox imbalance may be in part responsible for the mentioned bioproductivity limitations. Toward better understanding the redox metabolism of C. thermocellum, we analyzed gene expression, using microarrays, during addition of two stress chemicals (methyl viologen and hydrogen peroxide) which we observed to change fermentation redox potential.
Project description:Clostridium thermocellum is a promising CBP candidate organism capable of directly converting lignocellulosic biomass to ethanol. Low yields, productivities and growth inhibition prevent industrial deployment of this organism for commodity fuel production. Symptoms of potential redox imbalance such as incomplete substrate utilization, and fermentation products characteristic of overflow metabolism, have been observed during growth. This perceived redox imbalance may be in part responsible for the mentioned bioproductivity limitations. Toward better understanding the redox metabolism of C. thermocellum, we analyzed gene expression, using microarrays, during addition of two stress chemicals (methyl viologen and hydrogen peroxide) which we observed to change fermentation redox potential. High quality RNA was extracted from C. thermocellum grown on cellobiose in chemostat culture and exposed, separately, to methyl viologen and hydrogen peroxide. Transcriptome profiles were obtained at seven time points during actively growing fermentations, 3 minutes, 15 minutes, 35 minutes, 7 hours, 14 hours, 50 hours, and 60 hours after beginning exposure to each stressor. Exposure treatments were carried out in duplicate and reference/untreated samples were taken before and between treatments, after flushing of stressor chemicals and re-equilibration of growth conditions.
