Nitrogen metabolism and butanol production by South African clostridium beijerinckii and clostridium saccharobutylicum strains

The acetone- butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation was one of the first fermentation processes to be industrialized on a large scale, and the dominant product, butanol is particularly significant due to its potential as a modern day fuel additive or fuel extender in the petrochemical industry. A collection of 19 solventogenic Clostridium beijerinckii and 11 Clostridium saccharobutylicum strains isolated from the National Chemical Products (NCP) ABE fermentation plant in Germiston, South Africa, were classed according to species by a quick species-specific colony PCR and by rifampicin screening methods respectively. The speciesspecific PCR aims to provide a rapid means of assessing any contamination of an ABE batch fermentation by differentiating between C. saccharobutylicum and C. beijerinckii species. Random Amplification of Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis generated four C. beijerinckii and two C. saccharobutylicum strain groups respectively. Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) was developed for a smaller selection of strains and showed a further two strain groups within the NCP C. beijerinckii strains and three groups within the C. saccharobutylicum strains.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Molecular and Cell Biology

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Reeve, Byron William Patrick

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Reid, Sharon J

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12946

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/12946