Engineered microorganisms having resistance to ionic liquids
AssigneeLawrence Livermore National Security, LLC
InventorsMichael P. Thelen, Douglas A. Higgins, Thomas L. Ruegg
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Abstract
The present invention provides for a method of genetically modifying microorganisms to enhance resistance to ionic liquids using a yeast Major Facilitator Superfamily (MFS), or a Salmonella MFS SmvA Pump or SmvR Regulator, a Small Multidrug Resistance Family (SMR), or Saccharomyces cerevisiae YDR090C, polypeptide, host cells genetically modified in accordance with the methods, and methods of using the host cells in a reaction comprising biomass that has been pretreated with ionic liquids.
Claims11
A culture medium comprising an ionic liquid and a recombinant microorganism, wherein the microorganism comprises a heterologous gene encoding a polypeptide operably linked to a promoter, wherein the polypeptide has at least 95% identity to one amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs:1 and 21, and the expression of the polypeptide confers to the microorganism resistance to the concentration of the ionic liquid in the culture medium.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.