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Microorganisms
Special Issues
Functional Microbial Diversity for Biotechnology
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Functional Microbial Diversity for Biotechnology

A special issue of Microorganisms (ISSN 2076-2607). This special issue belongs to the section "Microbial Biotechnology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2022) | Viewed by 6324

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. George Tsiamis

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Guest Editor
Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Patras, 30100 Agrinio, Greece
Interests: microbial ecology; genomics; metagenomics; endosymbionts
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dimitris G. Hatzinikolaou

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Guest Editor
Enzyme and Microbial Biotechnology Unit, Department of Biology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Interests: microbial biotechnology; enzyme biotechnology; environmental microbiology; biorefineries; biofuels; bio-engineering; synthetic biology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Panagiota Stathopoulou

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Guest Editor
Department of Sustainable Agriculture, University of Patras, Agrinio, Greece
Interests: microbiome diversity; insect symbionts; fish pathogens; non-tuberculous mycobacteria; extremophiles
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Microorganisms are the ubiquitous janitors of the Earth, occurring in all climate areas and maintaining the stability of living systems around us. Microbial diversity is generally seen as a triad composed of taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity. Therefore, unravelling the microbial systems through the triadic approach is essential not only to fully understand the evolution and sustainability of life on Earth, but to generate ecological insights that could be harnessed to revolutionize the productivity of white and red biotechnologies.

To best exploit microorganisms, we need to know what is there and what we can use. Since most natural microbiomes remain uncultivated, culture-independent technologies combined with other omics provide an excellent opportunity to recover the hidden players of microbial diversity and exploit them for biotechnological processes.

The aim of this Special Issue of Microorganisms is to present a collection of articles and reviews on research addressing the essential link between microbial biodiversity patterns and ecosystem functioning as a core driver of biotechnological services.

Excellent and innovative manuscripts can be focused on (but are not limited to):

  • Microbial diversity and bioprospecting;
  • Functional units in microbial ecology (taxa-centered or community-centered approaches);
  • Biotechnological applications of microorganisms in sustainable production processes, the production of bioactive molecules, or environmental protection;
  • Applied aspects of extreme microorganisms;
  • Metagenomics for novel products.

We look forward to your valuable contribution.

Prof. Dr. George Tsiamis
Prof. Dr. Dimitris G. Hatzinikolaou
Dr. Panagiota Stathopoulou
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Microorganisms is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • microbial communities
  • functional diversity
  • physiological traits
  • microbial biotechnology
  • applied microbiology
  • biodiscovery
  • microbial ecosystem mining
  • microbial biosynthesis
  • bioprocess development

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 6022 KiB  
Article
Estimation of Carbon Metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae Acclimatized to Glycerol Assimilation with Quantitative PCR
by Akihito Nakanishi, Kuan Zhang, Riri Matsumoto and Naotaka Yamamoto
Microorganisms 2022, 10(6), 1173; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms10061173 - 07 Jun 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1832
Abstract
Saccharomyces cerevisiae has the potential to produce value-added chemicals; however, this strain is restricted by using glycerol as a carbon source. Although acclimatization of S. cerevisiae as a glycerol-assimilating strain was confirmed so far, the reason why S. cerevisiae can be acclimatized was [...] Read more.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae has the potential to produce value-added chemicals; however, this strain is restricted by using glycerol as a carbon source. Although acclimatization of S. cerevisiae as a glycerol-assimilating strain was confirmed so far, the reason why S. cerevisiae can be acclimatized was not clear in detail with limited information on the metabolic changes. In this report, glycerol-assimilating strains from S. cerevisiae BY4741 were isolated, and the biomass production, ethanol fermentation, and transcription levels related to glycolysis and the tricarboxylic acid cycle under aerobic and slightly anaerobic conditions were analyzed. As the results show, although µmax was equal to 0.15 h−1 between wildtype and glycerol-assimilating strains in an aerobic culture including glucose, the differences in max biomass production and percentage yields of ethanol and transcription levels between the two strains were shown. In slightly anaerobic culture, the differences in transcription levels downstream of glycolysis were also displayed. In the case of the glycerol-assimilating strain with glycerol under aerobic conditions, although the transcription levels related to ethanol production were sufficient, the ethanol production was not detected. Additionally, the biomass production reached a plateau even in the culture containing sufficient glycerol, indicating that the redox imbalance even in the cells of the glycerol-acclimatized strain could disturb the utilization of glycerol. The obtained knowledge will promote the use of glycerol resources with the glycerol-acclimatized S. cerevisiae in view of carbon recycling. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Functional Microbial Diversity for Biotechnology)
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15 pages, 2287 KiB  
Article
Structure–Function Relationship Studies of Multidomain Levansucrases from Leuconostocaceae Family
by Flor de María García-Paz, Salvador Martínez-Bahena and Clarita Olvera
Microorganisms 2022, 10(5), 889; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms10050889 - 24 Apr 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1469
Abstract
Levansucrase LevS from Leuconostoc mesenteroides B-512F is a multidomain fructansucrase (MD-FN) that contains additional domains (ADs) to the catalytic domain. However, the understanding of the effect that these ADs have on enzyme activity remains vague. To this aim, structure-function relationship studies of these [...] Read more.
Levansucrase LevS from Leuconostoc mesenteroides B-512F is a multidomain fructansucrase (MD-FN) that contains additional domains (ADs) to the catalytic domain. However, the understanding of the effect that these ADs have on enzyme activity remains vague. To this aim, structure-function relationship studies of these LevS ADs were performed by evaluating both biochemical properties and the enzymatic capacity of truncated versions of LevS. Joint participation of the N- and C-terminal domains is essential for stability, activity, specificity, and polymerization processes. Specifically, the N-terminal region is involved in stability, while the transition region plays an essential role in the transfructosylation reaction and polymer elongation. Based on our results, we suggest that ADs interact with each other, adopting a U-shaped topology. The importance of these ADs observed in the MD-FN of the Leuconostocaceae family is not shared by the Lactobacillaceae family. Phylogenetic analysis of LevS AD suggests that MD-FN from Lactobacillaceae and Leuconostocaceae have different evolutionary origins. This is the first study on the structure-function relationship of multidomain levansucrases from the Leuconostocaceae family. Our results point towards the functional role of AD in MD-FN and its involvement in fructan synthesis. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Functional Microbial Diversity for Biotechnology)
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12 pages, 2742 KiB  
Article
Metabolic Engineering of Escherichia coli for Hyperoside Biosynthesis
by Guosi Li, Fucheng Zhu, Peipei Wei, Hailong Xue, Naidong Chen, Baowei Lu, Hui Deng, Cunwu Chen and Xinjian Yin
Microorganisms 2022, 10(3), 628; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms10030628 - 16 Mar 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2406
Abstract
Hyperoside (quercetin 3-O-galactoside) exhibits many biological functions, along with higher bioactivities than quercetin. In this study, three UDP-dependent glycosyltransferases (UGTs) were screened for efficient hyperoside synthesis from quercetin. The highest hyperoside production of 58.5 mg·L−1 was obtained in a recombinant [...] Read more.
Hyperoside (quercetin 3-O-galactoside) exhibits many biological functions, along with higher bioactivities than quercetin. In this study, three UDP-dependent glycosyltransferases (UGTs) were screened for efficient hyperoside synthesis from quercetin. The highest hyperoside production of 58.5 mg·L−1 was obtained in a recombinant Escherichia coli co-expressing UGT from Petunia hybrida (PhUGT) and UDP-glucose epimerase (GalE, a key enzyme catalyzing the conversion of UDP-glucose to UDP-galactose) from E. coli. When additional enzymes (phosphoglucomutase (Pgm) and UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (GalU)) were introduced into the recombinant E. coli, the increased flux toward UDP-glucose synthesis led to enhanced UDP-galactose-derived hyperoside synthesis. The efficiency of the recombinant strain was further improved by increasing the copy number of the PhUGT, which is a limiting step in the bioconversion. Through the optimization of the fermentation conditions, the production of hyperoside increased from 245.6 to 411.2 mg·L−1. The production was also conducted using a substrate-fed batch fermentation, and the maximal hyperoside production was 831.6 mg·L−1, with a molar conversion ratio of 90.2% and a specific productivity of 27.7 mg·L−1·h−1 after 30 h of fermentation. The efficient hyperoside synthesis pathway described here can be used widely for the glycosylation of other flavonoids and bioactive substances. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Functional Microbial Diversity for Biotechnology)
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