Generation of Pseudomonas sp. tolerant to acid-stress and raw sugarcane straw hydrolysates in a biorefinery context

• Grant number: 23/16608-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: July 01, 2024
• End date: June 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Microbiology - Applied Microbiology
• Principal Investigator: María Eugenia Guazzaroni
• Grantee: Matheus Pedrino Gonçalves
• Supervisor: Adam M Feist
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 21/09375-3 - Development of new microbial platforms tolerant to lignocellulosic biomass hydrolysates, BP.DR

Abstract

Sugarcane straw biomass is a promising and abundant feedstock enriched in fermentative sugars and desirable for bioprocess in a biorefinery context. However, sugarcane biomass must be pretreated and hydrolyzed releasing degradation products that hinder microbial fermentation. Moreover, diluted-acid pretreatments applied at commercial level contribute to create an acid-stress environment enhancing the inhibitory effects in hydrolysates. Investments in the biotechnological industry and in emerging areas such as metabolic and evolutionary engineering have been trying to increase microbial tolerance and develop new non-conventional microbial hosts applied to fermentative process. Thus, Pseudomonas sp. strains appeared as a potential alternative microbial platform for biomass valorization due to remarkable tolerance mechanisms and versatile metabolism. Concerning this context, in collaboration with the research group of Dr. Adam M. Feist (UC San Diego), an honored reference in bioengineering and adaptive evolution in laboratory, we intend to develop new non-conventional microbial hosts from Pseudomonas sp. tolerant to acid-stress and raw sugarcane straw hydrolysates by automated ALE. Previous efforts in our group showed a challenging step to maintain microbial cultures under acid stress which could be facilitated by automated platforms. Moreover, we aim to understand the tolerance mechanisms related to acid-stress response and into raw biomass hydrolysates by whole-genome sequencing and fixed mutation analysis. At the end, we want to investigate mutation causality which could bring more insights on strategies that Pseudomonas sp. uses to tolerate acid-stress and biomass hydrolysates applicable to generate microbial strains fitted with industrial scenario.