abstract
Enrichment of mixed microbial cultures (MMCs) in polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA)-storing microorganisms must take place to develop a successful PHA production process. Moreover, throughout the operational period of a MMC system, the population needs to be checked in order to understand the changes in the performance that eventually occurred. For these reasons, it is necessary to monitor the population evolution, in order to identify the different groups of microorganisms and relate them with the storage capacity and kinetics of the MMC. Regarding this particular process, several culture-independent molecular techniques were already applied, with the use of hybridization techniques such fluorescence in situ hybridization and also PCR-based methods like denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism, pyrosequencing, and quantitative PCR standing out. This review intends, thus, to look at the molecular methods currently applied in monitoring the PHA-storing population evolution and how they can be combined with the evolutionary engineering step in order to optimize the overall process.
keywords
WASTE-WATER TREATMENT; SEQUENCING BATCH REACTOR; MIXED MICROBIAL CULTURE; POLYHYDROXYALKANOATE-ACCUMULATING BACTERIA; POLYMERASE-CHAIN-REACTION; REAL-TIME PCR; ACTIVATED-SLUDGE; BIODEGRADABLE POLYMERS; SYNTHASE GENE; POLYHYDROXYBUTYRATE PRODUCTION
subject category
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
authors
Queiros, D; Lemos, PC; Rossetti, S; Serafim, LS
our authors
Diogo Cerqueira Queirós
PhD Student
Luísa Seuanes Serafim
Assistant Professoracknowledgements
This study was funded by FCT/MEC (grant number SFRH/BD/87758/2012) and national funds through the FCT/MEC and when appropriate co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials (FCT UID/CTM/50011/2013) and REQUIMTE (PEst-C/EQB/LA0006/2013)).