B.S. Chemical Engineering, North Carolina State University
RESEARCH Project
In order to better understand the clostridial sporulation program, a ChIP-on-chip (chromatin immunoprecipitation on a DNA microarray chip) procedure is being developed to determine the regulons of key sporulation transcription factors. Of particular interest are the regulons of the first two major factors, Spo0A and σF, but additional factors will be investigated in the future. The ChIP-on-chip data will be combined with transcriptional analysis of null mutants to produce a robust prediction for the regulons of the major sporulation factors.
Cellulosic biofuel production is an attractive industrial process because of the abundance and relative inexpensiveness of the substrate. However, despite having the genes needed for cellulose degradation (genes encoding a cellulosome similar to that found in C. cellulolyticum), C. acetobutylicum cannot degrade and utilize cellulose. Creating a strain with a functional cellulosome able to degrade and utilize cellulose is being pursued using various mutagenesis, library, and genomic rearrangement methods.
ADVISOR
E. T. Papoutsakis, University of Delaware
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Paredes, C.J., Jones, S.J., Senger, R.S., Borden, J.R., Siller, R., and E.T. Papoutsakis. "Molecular aspects of butanol fermentation", in Bioenergy (J. Wall, C.S. Harwood, and A.L. Demain, Eds). ASM Press, Washington, DC. 2008.
RESEARCH SUMMARY KEYWORDS
