Re-engineering robustness in to industrial antibiotic producing Streptomyces strains

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Currently around two-thirds of our antibiotics are made by the soil bacterium Streptomyces. Industrial Streptomyces usually undergo several rounds of random mutagenesis to improve their production characteristics becoming highly-adapted to industrial culture conditions. There is a problem, however, highly-adapted strains are less flexible limiting alterations to production processes and the introduction of sustainable feedstocks. This project will identify genes used by the bacteria to adapt to certain feedstocks and develop new, rapid methods to repair genes lost or damaged genes during mutagenesis, maintaining performance and increasing the flexibility of high-producing strains. This is important because the generation of industrial strains is time consuming and labour intensive. Understanding what limits flexibility in high-yielding antibiotic producers and repairing these mutations will make it easier and greener to make future antibiotics and combat antimicrobial resistance.