Metabolic engineering of Cupriavidus necator H16 for heterotrophic and autotrophic production of 3-hydroxypropionic acid (2022)
Journal Article
Salinas, A., McGregor, C., Irorere, V., Arenas-López, C., Bommareddy, R. R., Winzer, K., …Kovács, K. (2022). Metabolic engineering of Cupriavidus necator H16 for heterotrophic and autotrophic production of 3-hydroxypropionic acid. Metabolic Engineering, 74, 178-190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymben.2022.10.014

3-Hydroxypropionate (3-HP) is a versatile compound for chemical synthesis and a potential building block for biodegradable polymers. Cupriavidus necator H16, a facultative chemolithoautotroph, is an attractive production chassis and has been extensiv... Read More about Metabolic engineering of Cupriavidus necator H16 for heterotrophic and autotrophic production of 3-hydroxypropionic acid.

Synthetic Biology Toolbox, Including a Single-Plasmid CRISPR-Cas9 System to Biologically Engineer the Electrogenic, Metal-Resistant Bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34 (2022)
Journal Article
Turco, F., Garavaglia, M., Van Houdt, R., Hill, P., Rawson, F. J., & Kovacs, K. (2022). Synthetic Biology Toolbox, Including a Single-Plasmid CRISPR-Cas9 System to Biologically Engineer the Electrogenic, Metal-Resistant Bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34. ACS Synthetic Biology, https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.2c00130

Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34 exhibits extraordinary metabolic versatility, including chemolithoautotrophic growth; degradation of BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene); high resistance to numerous metals; biomineralization of gold, platinum... Read More about Synthetic Biology Toolbox, Including a Single-Plasmid CRISPR-Cas9 System to Biologically Engineer the Electrogenic, Metal-Resistant Bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34.

Enhancing Microbial Electron Transfer through Synthetic Biology and Biohybrid Approaches: Part I: Bioelectrochemistry for sustainable energy conversion (2022)
Journal Article
Myers, B., Hill, P., Rawson, F., & Kovacs, K. (2022). Enhancing Microbial Electron Transfer through Synthetic Biology and Biohybrid Approaches: Part I: Bioelectrochemistry for sustainable energy conversion. Johnson Matthey Technology Review, 66(4), 443-454. https://doi.org/10.1595/205651322X16548607638938

Traditional microbial synthesis of chemicals and fuels often rely on energy-rich feedstocks such as glucose, raising ethical concerns as they are directly competing with the food supply. Therefore, it is imperative to develop novel processes that rel... Read More about Enhancing Microbial Electron Transfer through Synthetic Biology and Biohybrid Approaches: Part I: Bioelectrochemistry for sustainable energy conversion.

Oxygen-Tolerant RAFT Polymerization Initiated by Living Bacteria (2022)
Journal Article
Gurnani, P., Bennett, M. R., Moloney, C., Catrambone, F., Turco, F., Myers, B., …Rawson, F. J. (2022). Oxygen-Tolerant RAFT Polymerization Initiated by Living Bacteria. ACS Macro Letters, 11(8), 954-960. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsmacrolett.2c00372

Living organisms can synthesize a wide range of macromolecules from a small set of natural building blocks, yet there is potential for even greater materials diversity by exploiting biochemical processes to convert unnatural feedstocks into new abiot... Read More about Oxygen-Tolerant RAFT Polymerization Initiated by Living Bacteria.

Oxygen-Tolerant RAFT Polymerization Initiated by Living Bacteria (2022)
Journal Article
Bennett, M. R., Moloney, C., Catrambone, F., Turco, F., Myers, B., Kovacs, K., …Gurnani, P. (2022). Oxygen-Tolerant RAFT Polymerization Initiated by Living Bacteria. ACS Macro Letters, 11(8), 954-960. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsmacrolett.2c00372

Living organisms can synthesize a wide range of macromolecules from a small set of natural building blocks, yet there is potential for even greater materials diversity by exploiting biochemical processes to convert unnatural feedstocks into new abiot... Read More about Oxygen-Tolerant RAFT Polymerization Initiated by Living Bacteria.

Establishing Mixotrophic Growth of Cupriavidus necator H16 on CO2 and Volatile Fatty Acids (2022)
Journal Article
Jawed, K., Irorere, V. U., Bommareddy, R. R., Minton, N. P., & Kovács, K. (2022). Establishing Mixotrophic Growth of Cupriavidus necator H16 on CO2 and Volatile Fatty Acids. Fermentation, 8(3), Article 125. https://doi.org/10.3390/fermentation8030125

The facultative chemolithoautotroph Cupriavidus necator H16 is able to grow aerobically either with organic substrates or H2 and CO2 s and it can accumulate large amounts of (up to 90%) poly (3‐hydroxybutyrate), a polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) biopolyme... Read More about Establishing Mixotrophic Growth of Cupriavidus necator H16 on CO2 and Volatile Fatty Acids.

Engineering bacteria to control electron transport altering the synthesis of non-native polymer (2021)
Journal Article
Bennett, M. R., Jain, A., Kovacs, K., Hill, P. J., Alexander, C., & Rawson, F. J. (2021). Engineering bacteria to control electron transport altering the synthesis of non-native polymer. RSC Advances, 12, 451-457. https://doi.org/10.1039/d1ra06403g

The use of bacteria as catalysts for radical polymerisations of synthetic monomers has recently been established. However, the role of trans Plasma Membrane Electron Transport (tPMET) in modulating these processes is not well understood. We sort to s... Read More about Engineering bacteria to control electron transport altering the synthesis of non-native polymer.

Biosynthesis of Poly(3HB- co-3HP) with Variable Monomer Composition in Recombinant Cupriavidus necator H16 (2021)
Journal Article
McGregor, C., Minton, N. P., & Kovács, K. (2021). Biosynthesis of Poly(3HB- co-3HP) with Variable Monomer Composition in Recombinant Cupriavidus necator H16. ACS Synthetic Biology, 10(12), 3343-3352. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.1c00283

Polyhydroxyalkanoates are attractive alternatives to traditional plastics. However, although polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) is produced in large quantities by Cupriavidus necator H16, its properties are far from ideal for the manufacture of plastic produc... Read More about Biosynthesis of Poly(3HB- co-3HP) with Variable Monomer Composition in Recombinant Cupriavidus necator H16.

The pMTL70000 modular, plasmid vector series for strain engineering in Cupriavidus necator H16 (2021)
Journal Article
Ehsaan, M., Baker, J., Kovács, K., Malys, N., & Minton, N. P. (2021). The pMTL70000 modular, plasmid vector series for strain engineering in Cupriavidus necator H16. Journal of Microbiological Methods, 189, Article 106323. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mimet.2021.106323

Cupriavidus necator H16 can convert CO2 into industrial chemicals and fuels. To facilitate its engineering, we designed, built and tested the pMTL70000 modular plasmids comprising standardised Cupriavidus and E. coli replicons, selectable markers and... Read More about The pMTL70000 modular, plasmid vector series for strain engineering in Cupriavidus necator H16.

Using singular perturbation theory to determine kinetic parameters in a non-standard coupled enzyme assay (2020)
Journal Article
Dalwadi, M. P., Orol, D., Walter, F., Minton, N. P., King, J. R., & Kovács, K. (2020). Using singular perturbation theory to determine kinetic parameters in a non-standard coupled enzyme assay. Journal of Mathematical Biology, 81(2), 649-690. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00285-020-01524-8

We investigate how to characterize the kinetic parameters of an aminotransaminase using a non-standard coupled (or auxiliary) enzyme assay, where the peculiarity arises for two reasons. First, one of the products of the auxiliary enzyme is a substrat... Read More about Using singular perturbation theory to determine kinetic parameters in a non-standard coupled enzyme assay.