Analysis of the dynamics and robustness of metabolic networks in a genetically engineered Pseudomonas fluorescens with inducible exo-polysaccharide pr

荧光假单胞菌是一种细菌，可以用来生产工业上重要的和医学上相关的胞外多糖藻酸盐。Alignate是一种树胶，通常从褐藻中获得。它被食品工业用来增加粘度，并作为其产品的乳化剂，它也被用于药物中的消化不良片剂。从褐藻中提取海藻酸盐是一个复杂的过程，一种更清洁的方法是使细菌分泌这种多糖。然后可以容易地从发酵罐中回收藻酸盐。然而，在荧光假单胞菌中藻酸盐生产的产率通常较低，我们希望通过更充分地了解生物系统来增加这种有价值的产品的产量。在这个项目中，我们将开发一种系统生物学方法来探索遗传工程荧光假单胞菌代谢过程的动力学和鲁棒性，其中藻酸盐的生产水平可以在很大范围内控制。在海藻酸盐合成中受影响的靶向和随机基因中断突变体和表达修饰水平的关键酶的突变体也将包括在研究中，这将有助于我们增加对这一复杂生物过程的了解。

Pseudomonas fluorescens is a bacterium which can be made to produce the industrially important and medically relevant exo-polysaccharide alginate. Aliginate is a type of gum which is generally obtained from brown algae. It is used by the food industry to increase viscosity and as an emulsifier of their products, and it is also used in medicine in indigestion tablets. Extracting alginate from brown algae is a complex process and a cleaner method is to make bacteria excrete this polysaccharide. The alginate can then be easily recovered from fermentors. However, the yield of alginate production in Pseudomonas fluorescens is generally low and we hope to increase the production of this valuable product by understanding the biological system more fully. In this project, we will develop a Systems Biology approach to explore the dynamics and robustness of metabolic processes in genetically engineered Pseudomonas fluorescens bacteria in which the level of alginate production can be controlled over a wide range. Targeted and random gene interruption mutants affected in alginate synthesis and mutants expressing modified levels of key enzymes will also be included in the studies and this shall help us increase our knwoledge of this complex biological process.