La soutenance aura lieu à 9h15 en salle 401 (bat. 39) le vendredi 29 septembre
Title: Beyond ABE fermentation: metabolic engineering of Clostridium acetobutylicum for the production of alternative metabolites
Abstract
The strict anaerobe Clostridium acetobutylicum has a century-long history with industrial biotechnology due to its ability to produce acetone and butanol from a wide range of carbohydrates. Our team has recently demonstrated that C. acetobutylicum can also efficiently degrade lignocellulosic substrates thanks to specific genome editions, making it a promising candidate for consolidated bioprocessing. In this context, my thesis describes metabolic engineering strategies to obtain C. acetobutylicum mutants producing fermentation products of industrial relevance.
A CRISPR/Cas9 tool was used to delete the genes ptb-buk, ldhA and thlA which resulted in a C. acetobutylicum mutant encoding the remaining key elements for NAD(P)H oxidation on the genomic megaplasmid pSOL1. This platform strain was then further used to insert and optimise the NADH oxidation pathways of compounds that C. acetobutylicum normally only produces in small amounts. In particular, we investigated the production of lactate, glycerol, 1,3-propanediol, ethanol and specific amino acids.
Jury:
M. Luis Bañeras Vives, Universitat de Girona, Rapporteur
M. Henri-Pierre Fierobe, CNRS, Rapporteur
Mme Isabelle Meynial-Salles, INSA Toulouse, Examinatrice
M. Wolfgang Liebl, Technische Universität München, Examinateur
M. Philippe Soucaille, INSA Toulouse, Directeur de thèse
M. Tom Wilding-Steele, INSA Toulouse, Co-encadrant de thèse
