October 23, 2015
Bacterial Metabolic Engineering for Carotenoid Production
Coryenobacterium glutamicum is a bacterium used to produce an industrial scale of compounds ranging from medicines to polymers via genetic engineering. Carotenoids are colored pigments produced by plants and prokaryotes known for their light absorbing properties. Humans and animals need carotenoids for their vision and obtain it from their diet. In the industry, carotenoids are integrated into medicines, food coloring and sunblock to name a few uses. This summer, I worked on constructing a plasmid from the genomic DNA of an archaeon that naturally produced the rare carotenoid Bacterioruberin and transforming my strain of C. glutamicum to harvest the pigment efficiently.
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