Aerobic bioprocesses using Escherichia coli

Abstract

Escherichia coli is one of the most studied microorganisms and has found many uses in biotechnological applications. In order to make these applications economically feasible, it is necessary to get sufficiently high yields of the product molecules. Due to its popularity in bacteriological studies, a lot of knowledge about factors that are important to consider when optimizing E. coli bioprocesses has accumulated. This knowledge has been used to construct models about genetics and metabolism of this bacterium making genetic modification to improve bioprocess yields easier. Factors important in bioprocesses using E. coli are discussed in this work. While most of the work is concentrated on basic properties common to most bioprocesses, special emphasis is put on bioprocesses related to protein production as it was considered to be one of the most important bioprocess application. First, a very brief introduction to biology of E. coli is given. Then the basic parameters’ effects on bioprocesses are discussed, and finally some aspects of product formation and collection are discussed. It was shown in this work that, although a lot of progress has been made in optimization of bioprocesses where E. coli is used, in many aspects these processes still remain to be far from optimal. Therefore, it is clear that great amount of research on bioprocesses using this bacterium remains to be done.