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Exploration of Extremophiles for Value-Added Products
Published in Pratibha Dheeran, Sachin Kumar, Extremophiles, 2022
Surojit Bera, Trinetra Mukherjee, Subhabrata Das, Sandip Mondal, Suprabhat Mukherjee, Sagnik Chakraborty
Extremophiles are a genre of microorganisms that grow under harsh environmental conditions such as extreme temperature, pH, salinity and pressure. Extremophiles can be subdivided in different categories depending on their preferred growing conditions: acidophiles (thrives at low pH conditions), alkaliphiles (grows optimally in alkaline pH conditions), halophiles (can grow in high salt concentration environment), thermophiles (thrives at high temperatures), psychrophiles (capable of growing in low temperatures), and xerophilies (thrives in dry environment). Extremophiles have gained a lot of interest recently, due to their ability to catalyse reactions under harsh operating conditions (Chen and Jiang 2018). Market for industrial enzymes to be used forbiorefinery framework is expected to cross 5 billion USD by 2021 (Zhu et al. 2020). Thus, research and development are now being focused on the genetic engineering of the extremozymes using biotechnological tools to increase activity and specificity (Fig. 2). The chapter gives an overview on the use of extremophiles in biorefinery model for the production of biofuels from biomass.
Next Generation Industrial Biotechnology (NGIB) for PHA Production
Published in Martin Koller, The Handbook of Polyhydroxyalkanoates, 2020
Common chassis of industrial biotechnology, including Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas putida, Lactobacillus spp. or Lactococcus spp., Bacillus subtilis, Corynebacterium glutamicum, Streptomyces coelicolor, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae must be grown under sterilization to prevent possible microbial contaminations. Chassis of the next generation of industrial biotechnology (NGIB) could be extremophile bacteria (no archaea) and bacteria able to consume special substrates such as methanol, carbon dioxide (CO2), or syngas. Extremophiles are microorganisms that live under relatively extreme conditions such as high or low temperature, pH, osmotic pressure, atmospheric pressure, radiation, presences of heavy metal and/or organic solvents et al. that are not suitable for the survival of other microorganisms [6]. The harsh growth conditions for extremophiles effectively prevent the growth of non-extremophile organisms. Some extremophiles can grow fast in the presence of inexpensive or toxic substrates or in the absence of sufficient water, they are candidates for NGIB provided they can be grown fast enough for industrial processing.
Halophiles: Pharmaceutical Potential and Biotechnological Applications
Published in Devarajan Thangadurai, Jeyabalan Sangeetha, Industrial Biotechnology, 2017
Rebecca S. Thombre, Vaishnavi S. Joshi, Radhika S. Oke
Extremophiles have been proved to be of great interest as the source of different enzymes, biomolecules and compounds of pharmaceutical relevance since they can thrive well under unique set of conditions. Among these organisms, enzymes produced from halophiles are of more interest as these organisms thrive in an environment of low water activity. They are the group of organisms that carry out all their activities in saline conditions. The enzymes produced from halophiles have unique set of properties and structures which enables them to function well in presence of high salt (Karan and Khare, 2011). Halophiles have predominant negatively charged residues on the solvent-exposed surfaces of the protein. These negatively charged residues attract water molecules thus keeping the proteins hydrated (Balasubramanian et al., 2002). It has been found that halophilic enzymes show high activity in low level of water activity. Studies have shown that these enzymes show substantial activity in organic solvents, and this makes it an ideal choice as biocatalysts (Lanyi and Stevenson, 1969). Halophiles in this context have been found to be a potential source of enzymes and they have known to produce many different enzymes since past (Haddar et al., 2009; Karan and Khare, 2010).
Extremozymes used in textile industry
Published in The Journal of The Textile Institute, 2022
Priyanka Kakkar, Neeraj Wadhwa
Extremophiles are microorganisms that can thrive under extreme environments that are hostile to humans like hot spring, thermal vents with high temperature, Arctic and Antarctic regions with low temperature, acidic lakes, high pressure and high saline lakes. Based on the extreme conditions, they are classified as thermophiles or hyperthermophiles that can grow at high temperature range > 80 °C up to > 110 °C, psychrophiles that can tolerate low temperature −2 °C to 20 °C, peizophiles (>500 atmospheres), acidophiles (pH < 4), alkaliphiles (pH > 9), halophiles (high salinity such as 30% salt) (Schröder et al., 2020). Extremophiles produce extremozymes that can catalyse the reaction in an environment not suitable for mesophiles. Enzymes produced from the mesophilic bacteria works well under moderate temperatures but do not catalyse chemical reaction under stressful condition. The market of industrial enzymes is increasing globally every year. From 1960s when enzymes was introduced in the industry, growth trend is estimated to be 2 billion dollars in 2004, 3.3 billion dollars in 2010, 7 billion dollars in 2017, and anticipated to be 10.5 billion dollars in 2024 with a compound annual rate of 5.7% (Atalah et al., 2019). Extremozymes have revolutionised the field of biotechnology and industrial processes which involve harsh conditions.
Fatty acids and survival of bacteria in Hammam Pharaon springs, Egypt
Published in Egyptian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 2018
Yehia A. Osman, Mahmud Mokhtar Gbr, Ahmed Abdelrazak, Amr M. Mowafy
Extremophiles are members of the extreme environment-tolerant organisms, which belong to Archaea, eubacteria, and eukaryote. These group of organisms can live, survive and flourish at temperatures above 50 °C and may reach 80 °C and up [1]. The normal temperature sensitive macromolecules (enzymes, proteins, lipids and nucleic acids) have demonstrated tolerance/resistance to this denaturing high temperatures. This adaptability of the thermophiles and hyperthermophiles cellular components is simply described as thermostability. These thermophiles and hyperthermophiles bacteria have been isolated from different habitats including hydrothermal vents and deep ocean-basin cores. From amongst them Gram positive/negative, spore or non-spore forming bacteria were isolated which exhibited aerobic or anaerobic metabolism [2] (See Table 1).
Effect of bacteria on strength properties and toxicity of incinerated biomedical waste ash concrete
Published in Environmental Technology, 2023
Harsimranpreet Kaur, Rafat Siddique, Anita Rajor
It has recently come to the trend of using microorganisms to stabilise or degrade the heavy metals that cause toxicity. Microorganisms involved in waste treatment is a major trend in the field of bioremediation of metal pollution as it proves to be an economical and less laborious method with zero waste or negligible waste. Few microorganisms are capable of surviving harsh environments, and these microorganisms are called extremophiles. These microorganisms can tolerate high acidic or high alkaline environments while evolving in that surrounding and focussing on breaking heavy metal [24]. Depending on the acidic or alkaline environmental tolerance, they are called acidophile or alkaliphile. Fungi and few bacteria can withstand heavy metals using types of mechanisms like extra-cellular, absorption, adsorption, intracellular sequestration of metals, etc. [25]. Metals are directly or indirectly involved in the growth of microorganisms in their metabolism affecting solubility, mobility, and absorption [26]. Leaching of one or more metal constituents also influenced by metabolic products such as organic or inorganic acids, ligands, or other metabolites produced by living cells. Alkaliphilic microorganisms can play a pivotal role as potential biotechnological applications due to enzymes viz. proteases, cellulases, and xylanases that are stable at high pH (>9.5) and temperature (>50°C) [27]. Incorporating bacteria in concrete or cement can improve the characteristics of cement of concrete. The microorganisms are capable of reducing alkalinity as well as heavy metal leaching. Some microorganisms can produce calcite through a phenomenon called microorganism-induced calcite precipitation, which is an environmentally stable method and helps to improve the properties of the mix [28,29]. The most common management practice for IBWA is landfilling in hazardous waste landfills. The outcome and contribution to knowledge this research adds and focusses on hassle-free and practical method to deal with the toxicity of IBWA while preserving natural resources like sand, water, etc. directly or indirectly. However, no study has been reported on the eco-friendly stabilisation of IBWA but chemical treatments were used. Vavva et al [30] has treated IBWA using phosphate to decrease the heavy metals leaching from IBWA. In the treatment, 3 l/kg of water was used for water washing to dissolve salts and heavy metals before disposing it to landfill sites. The end product produced after chemical treatment is only a landfill and is not suggested for use in the construction industry. Also, the use of inorganic acids such as hydrochloric acid, sulphuric acid, etc. in the neutralisation process can be hazardous and corrosive and may cause health problems to the workers. Other researchers have reported methods include solidification of IBWA using cement [6,12,22]. The high alkalinity provides hindrance in strength of matrix so before using it in construction it requires pre-treatment. So, there is a need to come up with a method/treatment that is an optimised solution for IBWA pollution with respect to environment.