Press Clip from MIT

Chemical Engineers Boost Bacteria’s Productivity - New Technique Improves the Yield of Useful Chemicals

In a paper appearing in the February 13 issue of Nature Biotechnology, the researchers showed that they could significantly enhance the yield of glucaric acid, a chemical that is a precursor to products such as nylons and detergents.

MIT chemical engineers have designed a novel genetic switch that allows them to dramatically boost bacteria’s production of useful chemicals by shutting down competing metabolic pathways in the cells.

In a paper appearing in the February 13 issue of Nature Biotechnology, the researchers showed that they could significantly enhance the yield of glucaric acid, a chemical that is a precursor to products such as nylons and detergents. This genetic switch could also be easily swapped into bacteria that generate other products, the researchers say.

“The challenge is to engineer a system where we get enough growth to have a productive microbial ‘chemical factory’ but not so much that we can’t channel enough of the sugars into a pathway to make large quantities of our target molecules,” says Kristala Prather, an associate professor of chemical engineering at MIT.

Source: MIT News