Staffan L. Sjostrom

High-throughput screening for industrial enzyme production hosts by droplet microfluidics

A high-throughput method for single cell screening by microfluidic droplet sorting is applied to a whole-genome mutated yeast cell library yielding improved production hosts of secreted industrial enzymes. The sorting method is validated by enriching a yeast strain 14 times based on its α-amylase production, close to the theoretical maximum enrichment. Furthermore, a 10(5) member yeast cell library is screened yielding a clone with a more than 2-fold increase in α-amylase production. The increase in enzyme production results from an improvement of the cellular functions of the production host in contrast to previous droplet-based directed evolution that has focused on improving enzyme protein structure. In the workflow presented, enzyme producing single cells are encapsulated in 20 pL droplets with a fluorogenic reporter substrate. The coupling of a desired phenotype (secreted enzyme concentration) with the genotype (contained in the cell) inside a droplet enables selection of single cells with improved enzyme production capacity by droplet sorting. The platform has a throughput over 300 times higher than that of the current industry standard, an automated microtiter plate screening system. At the same time, reagent consumption for a screening experiment is decreased a million fold, greatly reducing the costs of evolutionary engineering of production strains.

Microfluidic screening and whole-genome sequencing identifies mutations associated with improved protein secretion by yeast

Significance Increasing demand for recombinant proteins leads to continuous attempts for improving the protein secretion capacity of host cells. In this study, we show that by combining high-throughput microfluidic screening with whole-genome sequencing of the selected clones from yeast libraries we can identify and map the mutations associated with significantly improved protein production. These identified mutations can be used as reverse metabolic engineering target genes in design of efficient cell factories for protein secretion. The mutations that we identified will also help in improving our understanding of the protein secretory mechanisms in yeast. There is an increasing demand for biotech-based production of recombinant proteins for use as pharmaceuticals in the food and feed industry and in industrial applications. Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is among preferred cell factories for recombinant protein production, and there is increasing interest in improving its protein secretion capacity. Due to the complexity of the secretory machinery in eukaryotic cells, it is difficult to apply rational engineering for construction of improved strains. Here we used high-throughput microfluidics for the screening of yeast libraries, generated by UV mutagenesis. Several screening and sorting rounds resulted in the selection of eight yeast clones with significantly improved secretion of recombinant α-amylase. Efficient secretion was genetically stable in the selected clones. We performed whole-genome sequencing of the eight clones and identified 330 mutations in total. Gene ontology analysis of mutated genes revealed many biological processes, including some that have not been identified before in the context of protein secretion. Mutated genes identified in this study can be potentially used for reverse metabolic engineering, with the objective to construct efficient cell factories for protein secretion. The combined use of microfluidics screening and whole-genome sequencing to map the mutations associated with the improved phenotype can easily be adapted for other products and cell types to identify novel engineering targets, and this approach could broadly facilitate design of novel cell factories.

Single-cell screening of photosynthetic growth and lactate production by cyanobacteria

BackgroundPhotosynthetic cyanobacteria are attractive for a range of biotechnological applications including biofuel production. However, due to slow growth, screening of mutant libraries using microtiter plates is not feasible.ResultsWe present a method for high-throughput, single-cell analysis and sorting of genetically engineered l-lactate-producing strains of Synechocystis sp. PCC6803. A microfluidic device is used to encapsulate single cells in picoliter droplets, assay the droplets for l-lactate production, and sort strains with high productivity. We demonstrate the separation of low- and high-producing reference strains, as well as enrichment of a more productive l-lactate-synthesizing population after UV-induced mutagenesis. The droplet platform also revealed population heterogeneity in photosynthetic growth and lactate production, as well as the presence of metabolically stalled cells.ConclusionsThe workflow will facilitate metabolic engineering and directed evolution studies and will be useful in studies of cyanobacteria biochemistry and physiology.

Metabolite profiling of microfluidic cell culture conditions for droplet based screening

We investigate the impact of droplet culture conditions on cell metabolic state by determining key metabolite concentrations in S. cerevisiae cultures in different microfluidic droplet culture formats. Control of culture conditions is critical for single cell/clone screening in droplets, such as directed evolution of yeast, as cell metabolic state directly affects production yields from cell factories. Here, we analyze glucose, pyruvate, ethanol, and glycerol, central metabolites in yeast glucose dissimilation to establish culture formats for screening of respiring as well as fermenting yeast. Metabolite profiling provides a more nuanced estimate of cell state compared to proliferation studies alone. We show that the choice of droplet incubation format impacts cell proliferation and metabolite production. The standard syringe incubation of droplets exhibited metabolite profiles similar to oxygen limited cultures, whereas the metabolite profiles of cells cultured in the alternative wide tube droplet incubation format resemble those from aerobic culture. Furthermore, we demonstrate retained droplet stability and size in the new better oxygenated droplet incubation format.