Increasing bacterial tolerance and metabolism of the biofuel, n-butanol using community-level evolution and functional genomics
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
n-butanol is a strong biofuel candidate since it is more energy dense and less volatile than ethanol. The bottleneck for industrial production of biobutanol is the toxicity; most microbes cannot survive about 1.5% v/v. We propose to develop bioremediation capability along with the biofuel technology to mitigate future spills and their consequences. Two main approaches were used: community-level screening and functional genomics, both followed by directed evolution to increase biodegradation. For the first approach, a bacterial library from historic bioremediation projects was re-isolated and re-characterized, then mixed into artificial communities of ~20 strains (“master mixes”). These master mixes were screened for tolerance to butanol, and continuously exposed to increase tolerance. Promising communities were then tested for growth with butanol as the sole carbon source. Secondly, we looked for bacteria with alcohol dehydrogenase enzymes and looked to increase butanol metabolism. We found that the tolerance for n-butanol may be improved with repeated exposure, but it was difficult to switch from tolerance to metabolism. Bacterial community dynamics may be influenced by n-butanol concentration, and there was putative butanol metabolism found with both research approaches.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- 89233218CNA000001
- OSTI ID:
- 2282526
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR--24-20625
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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