Biomolecular Engineering Solutions for Renewable Specialty Chemicals

Rouf Ahmad DarDepartment of Microbiology Punjab Agricultural University Ludhiana, PB India

Madhuri DuttaBiochemistry and Cell Biology Laboratory School of Basic Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, OR India

Santhalingam GayathriDepartment of Genetic Engineering School of Biotechnology Madurai Kamaraj University Madurai, TN India

Tanvi GovilDepartment of Chemical and Biological Engineering South Dakota Mines Rapid City, SD USA

Composite and Nanocomposite Advanced Manufacturing – Biomaterials Center

Rapid City, SD

USA

Muhammad Heikal IsmailDepartment of Chemical and Environmental Engineering Faculty of Engineering Universiti Putra Malaysia Serdang, Malaysia

Shereena JoyDepartment of Biotechnology Indian Institute of Technology Madras Chennai, TN India

Sukumaran KarthikaDepartment of Genetic Engineering School of Biotechnology Madurai Kamaraj University Madurai, TN India

Chandraraj KrishnanDepartment of Biotechnology Indian Institute of Technology Madras Chennai, TN India

R. Navanietha KrishnarajSouth Dakota School of Mines and Technology Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering Rapid City, SD USA

BuG ReMeDEE Consortium, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

Rapid City, SD

USA

Composite and Nanocomposite Advanced Manufacturing Centre – Biomaterials (CNAM/Bio)

Rapid City, SD

USA

Manoj KumarDepartment of Genetic Engineering School of Biotechnology Madurai Kamaraj University Madurai, TN India

Sanjay KumarSchool of Biochemical Engineering IIT (BHU) Varanasi Varanasi, UP India

Satya Sundar MohantyAssistant Professor Department of Biotechnology School of Agriculture and Biosciences Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences Coimbatore, TN India

Vignesh NatarajanDepartment of Biotechnology Indian Institute of Technology Madras Chennai, TN India

Sinjini PatraBiochemistry and Cell Biology Laboratory School of Basic Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, OR India

Urmila Gupta PhutelaDepartment of Microbiology Punjab Agricultural University Ludhiana, PB India

Department of Renewable Energy Engineering

Punjab Agricultural University

Ludhiana, PB

India

Akhil RautelaSchool of Biochemical Engineering IIT (BHU) Varanasi, Varanasi UP, India

Gayathri RavichandranDepartment of Biomedical Engineering Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad Kandi, Telangana USA

Aravind Kumar RenganDepartment of Biomedical Engineering Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad Kandi, Telangana India

Winny RoutrayDepartment of Food Process Engineering National Institute of Technology Rourkela, OR India

Anasuya RoychowdhurySchool of Basic Sciences Biochemistry and Cell Biology Laboratory Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, OR India

David R. SalemDepartment of Chemical and Biological Engineering South Dakota Mines Rapid City, SD USA

Composite and Nanocomposite Advanced Manufacturing – Biomaterials Center

Rapid City, SD

USA

Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering

South Dakota Mines Rapid City, SD

USA

Rajesh K. SaniSouth Dakota School of Mines and Technology Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering Rapid City, SD USA

South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

BuG ReMeDEE Consortium

Rapid City, SD

USA

Composite and Nanocomposite Advanced Manufacturing Centre – Biomaterials (CNAM/Bio)

Rapid City, SD

USA

South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

Department of Chemistry and Applied Biological Sciences

Rapid City, SD

USA

Shivam SaxenaBiochemistry and Cell Biology Laboratory School of Basic Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, OR India

Shailendra Singh SheraDepartment of Biotechnology Faculty of Engineering & Technology Rama University Kanpur, UP India

K. SundarDepartment of Biotechnology School of Bio and Chemical Engineering Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education Krishnankoil, TN India

B. VanavilDepartment of Biotechnology School of Bio and Chemical Engineering Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education Krishnankoil, TN India

Perumal VaralakshmiDepartment of Molecular Microbiology School of Biotechnology Madurai Kamaraj University Madurai, TN India

Mohan Kumar VermaSchool of Biotechnology Department of Molecular Microbiology Madurai Kamaraj University Madurai, TN India

Akhil Rautela and Sanjay Kumar

School of Biochemical Engineering, IIT (BHU) Varanasi, Varanasi, UP, India

As we are going toward becoming more developed, we tend to see our transition toward more sustainable resources and knowing and understanding the life form more. This leads to the use of the living system and engineer them to produce biocommodities such as fuels, polymers, hormones, therapeutic proteins and peptides, and neurotransmitters, which is termed as biocommodity engineering. It basically deals with the need of society. Biotechnology, genetic engineering, and biocommodity engineering can be combined to meet these needs. The foundation of biocommodity engineering lies in molecular biology, which is also the foundation of genetic engineering or recombinant DNA technology (rDT). Therefore, it can be said that these terms are interrelated to each other. The majority of the biocommodities consumed by humans were earlier isolated from plants and animals, posing the threat of activation of immune reactions in humans. So, the machinery of the synthesis of these biocommodities can be engineered in microorganisms.

Its main aim is to engineer microorganisms to get a high yield of the product, use cheap raw material as a substrate so that cost of the product can be minimized, easy downstream processing, increasing robustness of the microorganism, etc. All this can be achieved by genetically modifying the organisms using genetic toolkits. This chapter deals with the basics of genetic engineering, giving details about the enzymes used, transformation techniques, and how to select a transformant from non‐transformants. Further sections compile the comprehensive data of the problems in the production of biopolymers, organic acids, and therapeutic proteins from conventional methods and development of mutant strains for the synthesis of these biocommodities. The last section of the chapter gives an insight about the biofuel production from photoautotrophic organisms such as cyanobacteria and microalgae, which utilizes sunlight and carbon dioxide as energy and carbon source, respectively.

The advent of genetic engineering, also called rDT, started in 1952 with the discovery of Hershey and Chase, stating DNA as the genetic material (Hershey and Chase, 1952). Cohen and Boyer in the early 1970s were the first to show that the genetic material of one organism can be easily expressed in the other. Genetic engineering ( Figure 1.1), in general, is the process in which the DNA is extracted, modified, transformed into a host cell, and a new organism is formed. The DNA from the desired organism is extracted and purified. It is then cleaved using restriction enzymes to get the gene of interest from it. The DNA fragment is then ligated into a vector, which acts as a driving vehicle for the DNA molecule to the host cells. This chimeric DNA molecule is then transformed into the host cells, and selection procedure under suitable stress conditions takes place. Finally, after numerous generations, the organism growing in the stress conditions is said to be recombinant or genetically modified. Genetic engineering has emerged as a crucial step in the development of industrial bioprocesses.