An evolution-led genomic study into E. coli styrene tolerance.

苯乙烯是多个行业的重要化学品，最著名的是作为塑料和橡胶生产中的单体。已经证明了使用大肠杆菌平台生产苯乙烯的努力，然而这种分子的毒性大大降低了生产率。我的研究旨在将实验性的进化技术应用于大肠埃希氏菌，以创造表现出令人满意的耐苯乙烯行为的突变变体。然后将对这些变异体进行组学研究，以确定适应外源苯乙烯压力的遗传、蛋白质组和脂代谢基础。

Styrene is an important chemical across multiple industries, most notably as a monomer in production of plastics and rubbers. There has been demonstrated efforts to produce styrene using an E. coli platform, however the toxicity of this molecule significantly reduces productivity. My research aims to apply experimental evolutionary techniques to an E. colistrain to create mutant variants that display desirable styrene tolerance behaviour. These variants will then be subjected to the 'omics' studies to determine the genetic, proteomic and the lipodomic basis of adaptation to exogenous styrene stress.