Developing a cell surface display system for C. necator H16

Carbon capture and utilisation has long since been a focal point of synthetic biology. Waste carbon can be utilised to manufacture fuel, chemicals, and other bioproducts. Using microorganisms as biorefineries for carbon utilisation is one of the ways that this can be achieved in synthetic biology. Escherichia coli is a model organism for these types of biological applications. It has been used as the scaffold for systems that demonstrate the ability of microorganisms to be used as biological tools. However, as our understanding of metabolic pathways and systems has increased, more organisms have been discovered to possess desirable traits that do not exist within E. coli, specifically those that could be implicated in efficient carbon capture and utilisation processes. Cupriavidus necator, is an organism that has been the subject of interest due to its native metabolic qualities. In the context of using microorganisms as tools for carbon utilisation, C. necator H16 is superior to E. coli fundamentally because of the presence of some of these metabolic pathways. C. necator H16 is well known for its ability to metabolise carbon into polyhydroxy butyrate (PHB), a polymer that can be used to produce biodegradable bioplastics. The PHB is produced by C. necator H16 as a response to stress induced through nutrient deficient growing conditions. C. necator H16 is a prime candidate for “building” an organism that can utilise waste carbon to produce a bioproduct. The final goal of this project alongside a collection of other work, is to use C. necator H16 as a biorefinery that can use many different carbon sources for growth and accumulation of PHB. It can become a modular framework for a system that can be changed dependent on the carbon feedstock, allowing it to degrade complex waste carbon, in a range of conditions, while still being able to metabolise the carbon into a high value product. This work aims to develop such a cell surface display system for C. necator H16.