Development of a cell factory for the production of the blue pigment indigoidine

• Grant number: 22/07901-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2022
• End date: August 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Chemical Engineering - Chemical Process Industries
• Principal Investigator: Adilson José da Silva
• Grantee: Ana Paula Moraes Luperni Horta
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Exatas e de Tecnologia (CCET). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The demand for natural dyes to replace synthetic analogs has been increasing due to the growing interest of society and industries in the development of sustainable processes. Among the natural dyes being studied for production by fermentation processes is indigotin, a secondary metabolite of intense blue color produced by some genera of bacteria. Indigoidine has great potential to replace indigo, which is produced mainly by polluting chemical processes, for use as a dye in the textile industry, as well as in the food, beverage, and cosmetics sectors, as it is non-toxic. Thus, obtaining microbial strains capable of producing this compound efficiently is very desirable, in order to enable its large-scale production. In this sense, this project proposes the construction of genetically modified strains of E. coli for the heterologous production of indigoidin. Obtaining this natural dye in this bacterium is still little explored by the scientific community, having been reported in only one work so far. Indigoidin biosynthesis occurs by the condensation of two glutamine molecules, and its production in E. coli requires the expression of two heterologous genes for an indigoidine synthetase and a phosphopanteteynil transferase. Therefore, the objective of this project is to perform the cloning and expression of these genes in different strains of E. coli, followed by the evaluation of recombinant strains in shake flask cultures, quantifying cell growth and product concentration throughout the process. It is expected that, in the end, indigoidin-producing strains will be obtained that will be used in future works for scale-up studies of this bioprocess.(AU)