Genome-wide screening of transcription factor deletion targets in Escherichia coli for enhanced production of lactate-based polyesters
Ryosuke Kadoya, Yu Kodama, Ken'ichiro Matsumoto, Toshihiko Ooi, Seiichi Taguchi

N-terminal SKIK peptide tag markedly improves expression of difficult-to-express proteins in Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Teruyo Ojima-Kato, Satomi Nagai, Hideo Nakano

Highlights

・N-terminal SKIK tag can increase the expression of difficult-to-express proteins.
・SKIK tag is effective in Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae expression systems.
・Our findings will be beneficial to biotechnology research and industry.

Effect of acetate as a co-feedstock on the production of poly(lactate-co-3-hydroxyalkanoate) by pflA-deficient Escherichia coli RSC10
Lucia Salamanca-Cardona, Ryan A. Scheel, Kouhei Mizuno, N. Scott Bergey, Arthur J. Stipanovic, Ken'ichiro Matsumoto, Seiichi Taguchi, Christopher T. Nomura

Highlights

・Acetate is an abundant byproduct of lignocellulosic biomass pretreatments.
・E. coli is engineered to use acetate as a carbon source for growth.
・Acetate can be used to modulate incorporation of lactic acid monomers into polyhydroxyalkanoates.
・E. coli can use acetate as a carbon source for the production of polyhydroxyalkanoates.

Medium optimization based on yeast's elemental composition for glutathione production in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Maximilian Schmacht, Eric Lorenz, Ulf Stahl, Martin Senz

Highlights

・The accelerostat-stat (A-stat) approach was used to determine an optimal growth rate.
・The fermentation medium was adjusted to be chemically defined for high glutathione (GSH) production.
・Different cysteine addition strategies were tested.
・The final fermentation strategy led to 90.09 ± 5.82 g/l CDW and 1459 ± 57 mg/l GSH.

Butyrate production under aerobic growth conditions by engineered Escherichia coli
Naoya Kataoka, Alisa S. Vangnai, Thunyarat Pongtharangkul, Toshiharu Yakushi, Kazunobu Matsushita

Identification and characterization of a novel N-acyl-homoserine lactonase gene in Sphingomonas ursincola isolated from industrial cooling water systems
Tomohiro Morohoshi, Niina Sato, Taro Iizumi, Airi Tanaka, Tsukasa Ikeda

Acetylation and deacetylation for sucralose preparation by a newly isolated Bacillus amyloliquefaciens WZS01
Jie Sun, Liang Chen, Bo Lou, Yanbing Bai, Xinjun Yu, Man Zhao, Zhao Wang

Nitrite oxidation kinetics of two Nitrospira strains: The quest for competition and ecological niche differentiation
Norisuke Ushiki, Masaru Jinno, Hirotsugu Fujitani, Toshikazu Suenaga, Akihiko Terada, Satoshi Tsuneda

Overexpression of endogenous 1-deoxy-d-xylulose 5-phosphate synthase (DXS) in cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC6803 accelerates protein aggregation
Kai Kudoh, Shingo Hotta, Midori Sekine, Rintaro Fujii, Arisu Uchida, Genma Kubota, Yusuke Kawano, Masaki Ihara

Importance of sulfide interaction with iron as regulator of the microbial community in biogas reactors and its effect on methanogenesis, volatile fatty acids turnover, and syntrophic long-chain fatty acids degradation
Sepehr Shakeri Yekta, Ryan M. Ziels, Annika Björn, Ulf Skyllberg, Jörgen Ejlertsson, Anna Karlsson, Matilda Svedlund, Magnus Willén, Bo H. Svensson

Highlights

・Sulfide effects on anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge were studied.
・Sulfide interaction with iron controls important microbial community functions.
・Acetoclastic methanogenesis was disrupted at S:Fe molar ratio >1.0
・Sulfide enhanced degradation kinetics of long-chain fatty acid, oleate.

Bacterial community dynamics in a biodenitrification reactor packed with polylactic acid/poly (3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) blend as the carbon source and biofilm carrier
Tianlei Qiu, Ying Xu, Min Gao, Meilin Han, Xuming Wang

Highlights

・We tested a laboratory-scale denitrification reactor packed with PLA/PHBV.
・More than 92% of the nitrogen was removed from synthetic wastewater by the reactor.
・The experimental conditions were 85 g/L influent NO3–N and a HRT of 2.5 h.
・After inoculation of seed sludge, bacterial diversity decreased and then stabilized.
・After 62 days, 178 clones were detected in the biofilm (80.9% Betaproteobacteria).

Analysis of metabolisms and transports of xylitol using xylose- and xylitol-assimilating Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Tatsunori Tani, Hisataka Taguchi, Takashi Akamatsu

Characterization of particulate matter binding peptides screened from phage display
Aw Wei Liang Alvin, Masayoshi Tanaka, Mina Okochi

Synthetic metabolic bypass for a metabolic toggle switch enhances acetyl-CoA supply for isopropanol production by Escherichia coli
Yuki Soma, Taiki Yamaji, Fumio Matsuda, Taizo Hanai

Acidic pH with coordinated reduction of basic fibroblast growth factor maintains the glioblastoma stem cell-like phenotype in vitro
Elizabeth M. Haley, Samantha G. Tilson, Ursula L. Triantafillu, Justin W. Magrath, Yonghyun Kim

Image-based cell quality evaluation to detect irregularities under same culture process of human induced pluripotent stem cells
Risako Nagasaka, Yuto Gotou, Kei Yoshida, Kei Kanie, Kazunori Shimizu, Hiroyuki Honda, Ryuji Kato

Evaluation of a newly developed mid-infrared sensor for real-time monitoring of yeast fermentations
Robert Schalk, Daniel Geoerg, Jens Staubach, Matthias Raedle, Frank-Juergen Methner, Thomas Beuermann

Corrigendum to “Experimental evolution and gene knockout studies reveal AcrA-mediated isobutanol tolerance in Ralstonia eutropha” [J Biosci Bioeng 122 (2016) 64–69]
Amanda C. Bernardi, Claudia S. Gai, Jingnan Lu, Anthony J. Sinskey, Christopher J. Brigham