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SUMMARY:Chemical Engineering Seminar - Thinking outside the flask - how to
  do something useful with algal metabolism
DTSTART:20190222T161500
DTEND:20190222T173000
DTSTAMP:20260408T071048Z
UID:fd7e6be2413563739d15584e99525f6428cacfbfb8dece75f22ce85b
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Alison Smith\, Department of Plant Sciences\, University
  of Cambridge\, UK.\nThere is enormous potential to use microalgae as feed
 stocks for everything from recombinant proteins and high value chemicals t
 o biofuels\, but to implement this technology in a sustainable and economi
 c manner\, it will be necessary to optimize many parameters\, and metaboli
 c engineering strategies will be essential. However\, in comparison with t
 he well-developed molecular biology tools available for manipulation of ba
 cteria\, yeast\, and even land plants\, those for algae are limited\, even
  for the well-studied Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. But this can also be an o
 pportunity to think outside the box and develop novel approaches. Vitamins
 \, in particular the water-soluble B-vitamins\, are a class of metabolites
  that offer several unique aspects that could be exploited in this context
 . Thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) riboswitches are regions in messenger RNA t
 hat bind to TPP directly without the involvement of protein factors. They 
 are present ubiquitously in bacteria\, and are the only riboswitches found
  in eukaryotes. In these latter organisms\, binding of the ligand results 
 in alternative splicing of the transcript\, which then leads to changes in
  expression of the mRNA. We have identified and characterised riboswitches
  in the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Key nucleotides in the mecha
 nism of action of these sequences have been established using a combinatio
 n of site-directed mutagenesis\, error-prone PCR and suppression mutagenes
 is\, and as a result we demonstrated that the riboswitches are modular and
  versatile\, responding to nM levels of the ligand\, and not just TPP but 
 also analogues and thiamine biosynthetic intermediates.  At the same time
 \, we have developed synthetic genetic circuits using a suite of engineere
 d TPP riboswitches that can ‘tune’ expression of one or more transgene
 s\, both in the nucleus and the chloroplast\, offering the means for sophi
 sticated metabolic engineering strategies.
LOCATION:BCH 2201 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==BCH%202201
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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