(256g) Engineering Inhibitor Tolerance

The fermentative production of biorenewable fuels and chemicals from biomass is often stymied by inhibition of the microbial biocatalyst, either from non-sugar impurities in the feedstock, and/or from the product molecule. Ideally, metabolic engineering should be able to address biocatalyst robustness with the same predictive, rational approach that is used to address biocatalyst metabolism. Our ability to use a rational approach is bolstered by the identification of design strategies from evolved strains and by characterization of the mechanism(s) of inhibition. Membrane damage is a commonly-identified mechanism of inhibition, and membrane engineering is a particularly promising method for engineering tolerance. This talk will describe these concepts in the context of fatty acid production in Escherichia coli.