Entrapment of commercially important invertase in silica particles at physiological pH and the effect of pH and temperature on enzyme activity

Engineering Escherichia coli for high-yielding 2,5-Dimethylpyrazine synthesis from L-Threonine by reconstructing metabolic pathways and enhancing cofactors regeneration

2,5-Dimethylpyrazine (2,5-DMP) is important pharmaceutical raw material and food flavoring agent. Recently, engineering microbes to produce 2,5-DMP has become an attractive alternative to chemical synthesis approach. In this study, metabolic engineering strategies were used to optimize the modified Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) strain for efficient synthesis of 2,5-DMP using L-threonine dehydrogenase (EcTDH) from Escherichia coli BL21, NADH oxidase (EhNOX) from Enterococcus hirae, aminoacetone oxidase (ScAAO) from Streptococcus cristatus and L-threonine transporter protein (EcSstT) from Escherichia coli BL21, respectively. We further optimized the reaction conditions for synthesizing 2,5-DMP. In optimized conditions, the modified strain can convert L-threonine to obtain 2,5-DMP with a yield of 2897.30 mg/L. Therefore, the strategies used in this study contribute to the development of high-level cell factories for 2,5-DMP.

Multiple draft tubes airlift loop membrane bioreactor as an efficient system for acidic 7-amino cephalosporanic acid (7-ACA) wastewater treatment

In this study, a lab-scale multiple draft tubes airlift loop membrane bioreactor (Mt-ALMBR) was used for treating acidic 7-amino cephalosporanic acid (7-ACA) wastewater under different pHs (3.54-6.20) and hydraulic retention time (HRT) (48 h, 36 h, 24 h and 16 h). During about 200 days operation, under HRT of 48 h and pH condition about 6.0, the optimum average COD and BOD₅ removal rates were reach to 84.4 ± 2.1% and 94.9 ± 0.8%, and the highest 7-ACA removal rate also observed as 77.6%. Biodegradation, membrane rejection, hydrolysis and sludge adsorption were the four main pathways of 7-ACA removal. With the increase of pH, biodegradation, membrane rejection and hydrolysis had significant positive impacts on 7-ACA removal, while adsorption had a negative impact. Moreover, mathematical models for 7-ACA removal rate and pH were calculated to guide the operation of Mt-ALMBR. Biodegradation was the main pathway to remove 7-ACA when pH was >4.17.

Highly efficient production of inverted syrup in an analytical column with immobilized invertase

This paper presents a procedure by which a simple and economical analytical column containing immobilized invertase was developed. This column has high efficiency of converting sucrose into inverted syrup rapidly. Gelatine beads were used for the immobilization of invertase. The enzyme was entrapped efficiently and was found to be stable and retained its activity over a period of 3 months. Immobilization parameters for maximum enzyme activity were estimated as temperature optima at 60 °C, pH optima 7.0 and 30 mg/mL enzyme concentration was found to give maximum immobilization (72 %). The reusability of the gelatine immobilized invertase was found to be seven times with a time interval of 24 h. The immobilized invertase presented a KM of 51.28 mM and Vmax of 0.334 mM/min. The time required to hydrolyse 50 % sucrose solution by a column of length 10 cm and diameter of 1.5 cm was found to be 15 min at room temperature. The column was found effective for inversion of biological samples like sugar cane juice.

A meso-macro compartmentalized bioreactor obtained through silicalization of “green” double emulsions: W/O/W and W/SLNs/W

We report a straightforward approach for both structuring and entrapping enzymes into hierarchical silica materials with hexagonally ordered mesopores and tailored macroporosity by converting a double emulsion colloidal template into solid lipid nanoparticles.