Production of rhamnolipids in shake flasks and bioreactor

• Grant number: 18/16411-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 21, 2018
• End date: December 20, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Microbiology
• Principal Investigator: José Gregório Cabrera Gomez
• Grantee: Vânia Novello
• Supervisor: Gloria Soberón Chávez
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Coyoacán (UNAM), Mexico
• Associated to the scholarship: 15/25348-5 - Analysis of the distribution of metabolic fluxes in the production of rhamnolipid and polyhydroxyalkanoate by Pseudomonas aeruginosa LFM 634 using labeled glucose (C13), BP.IC

Abstract

The accumulation of petrochemical-based materials in soil and water has been a major problem of environmental pollution due to the difficulty of their degradation and reincorporation to the biological cycles. An alternative to overcome this situation is the use of biodegradable bioproducts synthesized by Pseudomonas spp., an example is rhamnolipids, a biosurfactant, which is a low toxicity natural surfactant of easy environmental degradation. It can replace petrochemical surfactants. Rhamonolipids have applications in several areas such as cosmetics, food, agriculture, bioremediation and even in the oil industry. However, this bioproduct have a high cost of production and it is difficult to produce in a large-scale, therefore, research aimed at creating strategies to reduce production costs are of extreme importance. One of the problems for large-scale rhamnolipid production is the foam formation in bioreactors, causing some of the cells to be carried by the foam and sticking to the bioreactor walls. In this internship, shake-flask and bioreactor cultures will be carried out in order to evaluate the production of rhamnolipids by Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain(s). The main target is to analyze the process of foam formation in these cultures and to search for alternatives to manage this problem.