Smith Matthew J, Francis Matthew B
Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Methods Mol Biol. 2018;1772:45-60. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-7795-6_3.
This work is motivated by both (1) the desire to make interesting products without the reliance on fixed carbon or fixed nitrogen using microbial cocultures, and (2) the desire to develop new methods for growing microbial communities. The bioplastic polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), for example, is considered prohibitively expensive to make from sugar (compared to polypropylene). Utilizing and building on engineered strains of Synechococcus elongatus and Azotobacter vinelandii, we have combined a nitrogen-fixing organism with a carbon-fixing organism to make PHB from air, water, sunlight, and trace minerals. Our observations of coculture growth in batch culture led us to develop an improved system based on manipulating the osmotic pressure within a hydrogel. The methods we used to develop this coculture are described in detail in the following chapter, including notes detailing some of our additional observations or thoughts on this system.
一是希望利用微生物共培养来制造有趣的产品，而不依赖固定碳或固定氮；二是希望开发培养微生物群落的新方法。例如，生物塑料聚羟基丁酸酯（PHB），从糖制取时（与聚丙烯相比）被认为成本过高。利用工程改造的聚球藻和棕色固氮菌菌株，并在此基础上，我们将一种固氮生物与一种固碳生物结合起来，利用空气、水、阳光和微量矿物质制造PHB。我们对分批培养中共培养生长的观察促使我们开发了一种基于控制水凝胶内渗透压的改进系统。我们用于开发这种共培养的方法将在下一章详细描述，包括详细记录我们对该系统的一些其他观察或想法。
