Thomas Grotkjær

This chapter links fermentation technology with economics and business development on the track from research to commercial production. It describes the overall challenges of developing fermentation processes and how to deal with the high degree of uncertainty in the initial phase. The techno-economic analysis of fermentation processes is then elucidated. Five fermentation-based chemicals are used as examples in the subsequent analysis (ethanol, n-butanol, succinic acid, adipic acid, and… Vis mere

This chapter links fermentation technology with economics and business development on the track from research to commercial production. It describes the overall challenges of developing fermentation processes and how to deal with the high degree of uncertainty in the initial phase. The techno-economic analysis of fermentation processes is then elucidated. Five fermentation-based chemicals are used as examples in the subsequent analysis (ethanol, n-butanol, succinic acid, adipic acid, and 1,3-propanediol). Vis mindre

Synthesis of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) from hexoses has been studied extensively in the scientific literature. However, a process has yet to be implemented at industrial scale. In this paper the simultaneous dehydration of glucose and fructose was investigated, in order to develop a process allowing the use of the cheapest available source of fructose: high fructose corn syrup. The dehydration was catalyzed by hydrochloric acid and conducted in acetone–water mixtures, which ensured good… Vis mere

Synthesis of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) from hexoses has been studied extensively in the scientific literature. However, a process has yet to be implemented at industrial scale. In this paper the simultaneous dehydration of glucose and fructose was investigated, in order to develop a process allowing the use of the cheapest available source of fructose: high fructose corn syrup. The dehydration was catalyzed by hydrochloric acid and conducted in acetone–water mixtures, which ensured good selectivity towards HMF and eliminated precipitation of polymer by-products (insoluble humins). Vis mindre

Very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, such as arachidonic acid (ARA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), have well-documented importance in human health and nutrition. Sustainable production in robust host organisms that do not synthesize them naturally requires the coordinated expression of several heterologous desaturases and elongases.

Many filamentous fungi produce polyketide molecules with great significance as human pharmaceuticals; these molecules include the cholesterol-lowering compound lovastatin, which was originally isolated from Aspergillus terreus. The chemical diversity and potential uses of these compounds are virtually unlimited, and it is thus of great interest to develop a well-described microbial production platform for polyketides.

The complete genome sequence of the filamentous fungi Aspergillus nidulans has paved the way for fundamental research on this industrially important species. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time a gene encoding for ATP-dependent NADH kinase (EC 2.7.1.86) has been identified. The enzyme has a predicted molecular weight of 49 kDa. We characterised the role of this NADH kinase by genomic integration of the putative gene AN8837.2 under a strong constitutive promoter.

Aspergillus nidulans is an important model organism for studies on fundamental eukaryotic cell biology and on industrial processes due to its close relation to A. niger and A. oryzae. Here we identified the gene coding for a novel metabolic pathway in A. nidulans, namely the phosphoketolase pathway, and investigated the role of an increased phosphoketolase activity.

Growth rate is central to the development of cells in all organisms. However, little is known about the impact of changing growth rates. We used continuous cultures to control growth rate and studied the transcriptional program of the model eukaryote Saccharomyces cerevisiae. A total of 5930 transcripts were identified at the different growth rates studied. Consensus clustering of these revealed that half of all yeast genes are affected by the specific growth rate, and that the changes are… Vis mere

Growth rate is central to the development of cells in all organisms. However, little is known about the impact of changing growth rates. We used continuous cultures to control growth rate and studied the transcriptional program of the model eukaryote Saccharomyces cerevisiae. A total of 5930 transcripts were identified at the different growth rates studied. Consensus clustering of these revealed that half of all yeast genes are affected by the specific growth rate, and that the changes are similar to those found when cells are exposed to different types of stress (>80% overlap). Our data show that the cellular growth rate has great influence on transcriptional regulation. This, in turn, implies that one should be cautious when comparing mutants with different growth rates.
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Dissimilatory nitrate reduction metabolism, of the natural xylose-fermenting fungus Fusarium oxysporum, was used as a strategy to achieve anaerobic growth and ethanol production from xylose. Beneficial alterations of the redox fluxes and thereby of the xylose metabolism were obtained by taking advantage of the regeneration of the cofactor NAD(+) during the denitrification process. In batch cultivations, nitrate sustained growth under anaerobic conditions and simultaneously a maximum yield of… Vis mere

Dissimilatory nitrate reduction metabolism, of the natural xylose-fermenting fungus Fusarium oxysporum, was used as a strategy to achieve anaerobic growth and ethanol production from xylose. Beneficial alterations of the redox fluxes and thereby of the xylose metabolism were obtained by taking advantage of the regeneration of the cofactor NAD(+) during the denitrification process. In batch cultivations, nitrate sustained growth under anaerobic conditions and simultaneously a maximum yield of 0.55 moles of ethanol per mole of xylose was achieved, whereas substitution of nitrate with ammonium limited the growth significantly. Vis mindre

The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae encounters a range of nitrogen sources at various concentrations in its environment. The impact of these two parameters on transcription and metabolism was studied by growing S. cerevisiae in chemostat cultures with l-glutamine, l-alanine, or l-ammonium in limitation and by growing cells in an excess of ammonium. Cells grown in l-alanine-limited cultures had higher biomass yield per nitrogen mole (19%) than those from ammonium-limited cultures.

Hierarchical and relocation clustering (e.g. K-means and self-organizing maps) have been successful tools in the display and analysis of whole genome DNA microarray expression data. However, the results of hierarchical clustering are sensitive to outliers, and most relocation methods give results which are dependent on the initialization of the algorithm. We show for the first time that one can take advantage of multiple clustering runs in DNA microarray analysis by collecting re-occurring… Vis mere

Hierarchical and relocation clustering (e.g. K-means and self-organizing maps) have been successful tools in the display and analysis of whole genome DNA microarray expression data. However, the results of hierarchical clustering are sensitive to outliers, and most relocation methods give results which are dependent on the initialization of the algorithm. We show for the first time that one can take advantage of multiple clustering runs in DNA microarray analysis by collecting re-occurring clustering patterns in a co-occurrence matrix. The results show that consensus clustering obtained from clustering multiple times with Variational Bayes Mixtures of Gaussians or K-means significantly reduces the classification error rate for a simulated dataset. The method is flexible and it is possible to find consensus clusters from different clustering algorithms. Thus, the algorithm can be used as a framework to test in a quantitative manner the homogeneity of different clustering algorithms. Vis mindre