Ensemble cell-wide kinetic modeling of anaerobic organisms to support fuels and chemicals production

The goal of this project is to develop a systematic procedure to construct cell-wide kinetic models of the related microbes Clostridium thermocellum and Moorella thermoacetica by integrating transcriptomic, metabolomic, and fluxomic data. C. thermocellum is an efficient degrader of lignocellulosic biomass that has been previously engineered for biofuel production, and M. thermoacetica is a homoacetogen that is being developed as a potential platform organism for conversion of synthesis gas ('syngas', a mixture of H2, CO2, and carbon monoxide produced during thermochemical conversion of biomass) to liquid biofuels. Ensemble modeling approaches applied to these two bioenergy relevant microbes would allow large volumes of data on metabolic pathways for carbon flux to be narrowed down to those most likely to represent actual physiology through restriction of possible model space, taking advantage of a variety of experimentally observed parameters going well beyond individual flux measurements. The establishment of predictive ensemble models will aid in further metabolic engineering, expanding the role of these organisms as potential biofuel production platforms.