Heat shock and chemical-induced stress response of Pseudomonas putida strains

Abstract

The C1 chemicals, such as formate and methanol, are potential feedstocks for sustainable bioproduction. This thesis investigates whether microorganisms that have been genetically modified to assimilate these substances through the reductive glycine pathway face stress. The growth experiments in C1 substrates under heat shock and chemical stress conditions by using stress response reporter systems, pAG032 and pBSibp_Amp, were performed. pBSibp_Amp is a better choice for measuring the heat shock response because it gives much higher ratios than pAG032, and fluorescent bacterial proteins, naturally produced by P. putida and the red fluorescent protein’s fluorescence spectra from plasmid do not overlap. Genetically modified strains can tolerate high concentrations of methanol and formate but do not yield biomass in these growth conditions.