Theme "Improvement of the knowledge of bacterial metabolism and its regulation

The work carried out on the improvement of the knowledge of the bacterial central metabolism is carried out mainly on two model bacteria of industrial interest: C. acetobutylicum (strict anaerobic bacteria) and E. coli (facultative anaerobic bacteria). The applied strategy combines i) a global and quantitative systems biology approach, to ii) the identification and characterization of new key metabolic enzymes and to iii) the validation of the role of these key enzymes through the creation and characterization of mutants. All the results obtained are then incorporated into the central metabolism, in order to improve the accuracy of genome-wide models.

Un savoir-faire et une méthodologie ont été acquis et sont aujourd’hui appliqués à d’autres bactéries. For example, the analysis of the central metabolism of Eubacterium limosum anaerobic bacterium capable of metabolizing low cost substrates with one carbon atom (C1) such as methanol or syngas is currently in progress (BIOMETCHEM project).

The improvement of the knowledge of the central metabolism allows to propose rational strategies of metabolic engineering to conceive, then to build with the help of synthetic biology tools, new cellular factories, able to convert renewable raw materials into basic products of interest for chemistry, energy... (SYNBIOCHEM, SynConsor4Butanol, EcoChem projects)