Integrated microfluidics for screening thermo-resistant fungi**

定向进化是一种人工进化菌株以发现新的有用蛋白质的技术。这项技术显示了一些蛋白质在强大的选择压力下进化的速度有多快，并为序列和功能之间的关系提供了新的见解。Lallemand Inc.是一家位于加拿大蒙特利尔的私人控股公司，是全球领先的酵母，细菌和人类和动物营养以及制药行业特种成分的开发和生产企业。目前Lallemand工作流程的瓶颈是高通量筛选和选择微生物菌株的自动化能力。执行这些任务的技术工具通常是带有流式细胞术的自动化机器人技术，这些技术通常成本高昂且需要很大的占地面积。另一种选择是使用一种叫做微流体的技术。微流体技术，也被称为“芯片实验室”，已经被证明是自动化机器人技术和流式细胞术的替代方案，因为它具有低成本和台式型占地面积的优势。事实上，微流体已被证明是一种直接进化和选择感兴趣菌株的有效工具。在这项提案中，Shih实验室（Concordia）和Lallemand公司正在联手使用基于微流体的技术来筛选和分离cloonostachys rosea的耐热突变体。玫瑰草是一种生物杀菌剂，定植在叶片和根表面，已知对线虫有抑制作用，抑制真菌疾病。通过这次合作，我们将能够使用Shih实验室开发的微流控设备来筛选玫瑰红梭菌突变体，以获得有关适应和抗性机制的丰富信息，这些信息可用于开发新型药物。这是快速菌株选择和工程的第一步，如果成功，它可能会改变加拿大人创造能源，生产食品的方式，以优化工业加工。********

Directed evolution is a technique used to artificially evolve strains to discover new and useful proteins. This technique has shown how rapidly some proteins can evolve under some strong selection pressures and have provided new insights into the relationship between sequence and function. Lallemand Inc., a privately-held Canadian company in Montreal, is a global leader in the development, production of yeast, bacteria, and specialty ingredients for human and animal nutrition as well as for the pharmaceutical industry. A current bottleneck in Lallemand's workflow is the automation capabilities for high-throughput screening and selection of microbial strains. The technological tools to perform such tasks are typically automated robotics with flow cytometry, which are usually cost-prohibitive and require large footprints. An alternative is to use a technology called microfluidics. Microfluidics, also known as "lab-on-chip", has been shown as an alternative to automated robotics and flow cytometry since it brings advantages of low-cost and benchtop-type footprint. In fact, microfluidics has been shown to be an efficient tool to directly evolve and to select strains of interest. In this proposal, the Shih lab (Concordia) and Lallemand Inc. are joining forces to use microfluidic-based technology to screen and to isolate thermo-resistant mutants of Clonostachys rosea. C. rosea is a biofungicide that colonizes on leaf and root surfaces and it is known to have inhibiting effects on nematodes and suppress fungal diseases. With this collaboration, we will be able to use developed microfluidic devices from the Shih lab to screen for C. rosea mutants to obtain a wealth of information on the mechanisms of adaptation and resistance that can be used to potentially develop novel pharmaceuticals. This is the first step towards rapid strain selection and engineering and if successful, it can possibly change the way Canadians create energy, produce food, to optimize industrial processing.********