Abstract
Biofilm research is usually focused on the prevention or control of biofilm formation. Recently, the significance of the biofilm mode of growth in biotechnological applications received increased attention. Since biofilm reactors show many advantages over suspended cell reactors, especially in their higher biomass density and operational stability, bacterial biofilms have emerged as an interesting approach for the expression of specific proteins. Despite the potential of biofilm systems, recombinant protein production using biofilms has been scarcely investigated for the past 25 years. Our group has demonstrated that E. coli biofilms were able to produce a model recombinant protein, the enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP), at much higher levels than their planktonic counterparts. Even without optimization of cultivation conditions, an attractive productivity was obtained, indicating that biofilm cultures can be used as an alternative form of high cell density cultivation (HCDC). E. coli remains one of the favorite hosts for recombinant protein production and it has been successfully used in metabolic engineering for the synthesis of high value products. This review presents the advantages and concerns of using biofilms for the production of recombinant proteins and summarizes the different biofilm systems which have been described for this purpose. The relative advantages and disadvantages of the four microbial hosts tested for recombinant protein production in biofilms (two bacteria and two filamentous fungi) are also discussed.
Highlights
Recombinant proteins are synthesized in a host cell which is usually of a different species from the source of the DNA encoding them [1] and in that case they can be called heterologous proteins
This study reported a 2 fold increase in the enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) production of biofilms developed in lysogeny broth (LB) when compared to what was obtained in DM [25]
According to the work published on recombinant protein production, microbial biofilm systems are sometimes able to produce recombinant proteins at attractive levels
Summary
Recombinant proteins are synthesized in a host cell which is usually of a different species from the source of the DNA encoding them [1] and in that case they can be called heterologous proteins. The insertion of the gene of interest into a multicopy plasmid may result in high recombinant protein expression [1] This may impose a metabolic burden on the host cell due to the energy and metabolites needed for the replication of plasmid DNA and synthesis of recombinant proteins [1,6]. In planktonic cells, this added metabolic burden may decrease the cellular growth rates and biomass yield, besides affecting the yield and activity of the desired protein [6]. The advantages and disadvantages of using different microbial hosts in the production of recombinant proteins, namely Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus oryzae, will be addressed
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