Date Created : 2001/2007

Date Acquired : 2010-09-08T14:32:30Z

Accessibility : Open to all

Project summary : This project aims to develop the knowledge base required to operate highly efficient rhodococcal cell factories to manufacture chiral precursors and pharmaceuticals. The collaborators will combine state of the art genetic approaches, genomics, DNA microarrays and directed evolution to investigate metabolic engineering of Rhodoccus as production platforms for (1) cis-amino indanol, aprecursor to the AIDS dug Crixivan and (2) novel polyketide and non-ribosomal peptide antibiotics. The metabolic pathways involved in these will be investigated, and production bottlenecks circumvented using genetic engineering and directed protein evolution approaches. This will generate a knowledge base of the quantitative physiology of the rhodococcal cell allowing us to address three key issues of generic importance: 1. those aspects of cell function that affect productivity or influence desired properties of biological products 2.cell function and properties that influence the downstream processing of biological products 3.changes in cell function in response to environmental change, including exposure to normal and abnormal substrates in relevant systems.