Immobilization of <italic>Methylosinus trichosporium</italic> OB3b for methanol production.

Taylor, Anne; Molzahn, Paige; Bushnell, Tanner; Cheney, Clint; LaJeunesse, Monique; Azizian, Mohamad; Semprini, Lewis

Due to the natural gas boom in North America, there is renewed interest in the production of other chemical products from methane. We investigated the feasibility of immobilizing the obligate methanotrophic bacterium &lt;italic&gt;Methylosinus trichosporium&lt;/italic&gt; OB3b in alginate beads, and selectively inactivating methanol dehydrogenase (MDH) with cyclopropane to produce methanol. In batch cultures and in semi-continuous flow columns, the exposure of alginate-immobilized cells to cyclopropane or cyclopropanol resulted in the loss of the majority of MDH activity (&gt; 80%), allowing methanol to accumulate to significant concentrations while retaining all of &lt;italic&gt;M. trichosporium&lt;/italic&gt; OB3b’s methane monooxygenase capacity. Thereafter, the efficiency of methanol production fell due to recovery of most of the MDH activity; however, subsequent inhibition periods resulted in renewed methanol production efficiency, and immobilized cells retained methane-oxidizing activity for at least 14 days.

METHYLOSINUS trichosporium; METHANOL; IMMOBILIZED cells; METHANOL dehydrogenase; CYCLOPROPANE

Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology, 2018, Vol 45, Issue 3, p201

1367-5435

Academic Journal

10.1007/s10295-018-2010-z