Journal Club: our recent article on a bacterial consortium for the biotechnological conversion of chitin into amino acids is covered in BIOspektrum

BIOspectrum, the joint journal of several German professional associations for biologists, covered our recent article in Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology in its Journal Club. This paper describes the main result of the joint public private partnership project F2F between our group, that of our microbiology colleagues Prof. Philipp (University of Münster) and Prof. Wendisch (University of Bielefeld), and the companies WeissBioTech and Cysal. The project was funded by the Zentrale Innovationsprogramm Mittelstand (ZIM) of the Federal Ministry of Economy and Energy (BMWi), supporting three doctoral candidates, namely Marina Vortkamp, Anna Stumpf, and Elvira Sgobba. Working in our group, Marina identified and characterized the chitin degrading enzymes required; Anna from the Institute of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology at our university constructed the substrate converter strain by integrating the genes coding for these enzymes into E. coli; and Elvira from the Bielefeld team constructed the C. glutamicum strain producing lysine as a model amino acid. The converter strain degrades chitin into glucosamine and acetate, feeding on the acetate and providing the glucosamine for the growth of the producer strain, which in turn provides the lysine required for growth of the converter. Designing and building such a mutually dependent consortium of bacteria for the biotechnological conversion of a waste stream into an added-value fine chemical required the joint efforts of an interdisciplinary consortium of scientists – and we are proud of our three doctoral candidates who succeeded in this demanding Synthetic Biotechnology project. And of course, we are equally proud to see that others also appreciate our success!