IN SILICO MODELING AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION FOR IMPROVING METHANOGENESIS FROM CO2 VIA M. MARIPALUDIS

Abstract

EXHAUST FLUE GAS GENERATED DURING COMBUSTION OF FOSSIL FUELS SUCH AS COAL ACCOUNTS FOR ABOUT 59.69 % OF THE CO2 EMISSIONS WORLDWIDE. TO REDUCE THESE CARBON EMISSIONS, COST-EFFECTIVE, CLEAN AND EFFICIENT APPROACHES ARE NEEDED TO CAPTURE THE CO2 FROM FLUE GAS AND CONVERT IT INTO A RELATIVELY CLEANER AND SUSTAINABLE FUEL SUCH AS METHANE. M. MARIPALUDIS IS A FAST GROWING, MESOPHILIC, HYDROGENOTROPHIC METHANOGEN WHICH REDUCES CO2 (AN ELECTRON ACCEPTOR) WITH THE HELP OF H2 (AN ELECTRON DONOR) FOR GROWTH AND METHANOGENESIS. DESPITE SEVERAL DECADE OF RESEARCH ON M. MARIPALUDIS, A CONSOLIDATED REVIEW ON ITS METABOLIC PROCESSES AND APPLICATIONS WAS LACKING IN THE LITERATURE. IN ADDITION, EFFORTS TO GENERATE A SYSTEMS BIOLOGY MODEL FOR M. MARIPALUDIS HAVE NOT BEEN SUCCESSFUL. WE INITIATED THE SYSTEM LEVEL ANALYSIS AND SUCCESSFULLY RECONSTRUCTED THE FIRST GENOME-SCALE METABOLIC MODEL (IMM518) OF M. MARIPALUDIS. FOR MODEL VALIDATION, WE PERFORMED BATCH CULTURE EXPERIMENTS AND QUANTIFIED THREE KE