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ABSTRACT
Small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) are short, noncoding RNAs that control gene
expression in bacteria and have the ability to bind the messenger RNA and inhibit
translation. They can be used in any application that requires the modification of gene
expression, such as metabolic engineering: an approach that aims to produce high
yields of chosen metabolites like succinic acid. This consists in identifying potential
genetic targets whose inhibition would allow increased production of succinic acid. It is
a diacarboxylic acid found in all living organisms and used in several industries such as
food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, textile and plastic production. Succinic acid can be
synthesised chemically from fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas. However, these
materials are becoming increasingly scarce, expensive, and polluting. It is therefore
preferable to use biotechnology, thanks to which it is possible to avoid the use of
products from agriculture as a carbon source for microorganism. Methylobacterium
extorquens is a methylotrophic Gram-negative bacterium, able to grow on methanol. It
is thus a good candidate to avoid using agricultural products as a carbon source for
microorganisms used in large-scale biotechnology production. The hypothesis of the
project is that it is possible to use small RNA to enhance succinic acid production via
this bacterium. Several different types of sRNA(s) can be synthesized to target distinct
genes within the metabolic pathways necessary for the production of the succinic acid.
The key element of the synthesized sRNA is a sequence complementary to the target.
sRNA transcription also requires a promoter which will needs to be carefully cloned to
avoid unnecessary sequences in the sRNA. The longer the sRNA sequence, the higher
the possibility for non-specific interactions or a reduced binding efficiency with the
desired target sequence can occur. While the engineered sRNA-system has been
proven useful in E. coli, it has not been used in other bacteria yet. We have built such a
system in Methylobacterium extorquens. A shortened-promoter was cloned and shown
to function to express the Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) reporter gene. The next