Date of Award:

5-2015

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Biology

Committee Chair(s)

Jon Y. Takemoto

Committee

Jon Y. Takemoto

Committee

Bradley Kropp

Committee

Dong Chen

Committee

Dennis Welker

Committee

Michelle M. Grilley

Abstract

Natural products are structurally and chemically diverse bioactive compounds produced by living organisms. The complex structures of natural products are often difficult to duplicate synthetically and thus industrial production of natural products most often depends on use of the host organisms. In this dissertation research, scalable production of natural products was pursued in bacterial platforms.

Biliverdin IXα is a natural anti-inflammatory compound which is emerging as a potent cytoprotectant in the medical field. Syringomycin E is a natural fungicide expected to be an effective agrofungicide in organic farming. Both biliverdin IXα and syringomycin E have limited supplies in the market. Genetic modification and mutation were performed to obtain bacterial strains capable of overproducing biliverdin IXα or syringomycin E. The resulting strains were grown in fermenters under optimized growth conditions for large scale production.

This research was conducted in the Department of Biology and Synthetic Bioproduct Institute at Utah State University. Novel production methods of two different natural products, biliverdin IXα and syringomycin E, were developed using bacteria as manufacturing platforms.

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Biology Commons

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