About this Research Topic

Background

Nowadays, there is a continuous and fast increment of the world´s population, which is projected to reach 10 billion people in 2057. As immediate consequence, the demand for food, chemicals and energy will continuously rise. Therefore, environmental, social, and ethical challenges in their production will soon emerge. According to the European Commission, bioeconomy is the production of renewable biological resources and the conversion of these resources and waste streams into value-added products, such as food, feed, bio-based products, and bioenergy. To boost the Global circular bioeconomy and to bypass the dependence on fossil-based fuels and chemicals, it is imperative to research new and renewable sources of energy and feedstocks. Notably, the utilization of new and greener microbial feedstocks in industrial biotechnology can help surpassing the previously mentioned challenges.

Most of the current biotechnological processes are based on food and feed competitive raw materials such as glucose which poses a conflict of interest with human and animal nutrition. Therefore, at large production scales, availability and competing uses of carbon sources are crucial elements for economic success of biotechnological processes. This Research Topic aims to track the latest research work and critical reviews regarding novel, innovative, and green microbial feedstocks, and their application in biotechnological processes. Some examples of feedstocks candidates are forestry and biorefinery by-products and side streams, agriculture and aquaculture wastes, seaweed biomasses, feed biomasses, and C1 compounds like methanol, methane or CO2. On top of that, production of value-added compounds such as bulk chemicals or pharma proteins from these substrates can reinforce the concept of Bioeconomy. Model microorganisms like Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Corynebacterium glutamicum and Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been extensively engineered to enable utilization of non-native substrates. Yet, regular raw materials are still preferable for most biotechnological processes. Hence there is a need for gathering new valuable information as well as recent developments in the matter that could encourage the replacement of those raw materials by green and non-food and feed competitive microbial feedstocks.

This Research Topic mainly welcomes Original Research, Brief Research Reports and Reviews of relevance. The topics that are covered include:

• Engineering and/or evolving microbial strains to increase tolerance to novel feedstocks.
• Characterization of promising microbial feedstocks.
• Deciphering, characterization, and application of new metabolic pathways related to substrate uptake and utilization.
• Enhancement of native metabolism via synthetic biology to enable or optimize consumption of novel feedstocks.
• Establishment of cell-factories to create new and innovative added-value chains from non-conventional feedstocks.
• Development of transferable genetic modules that could enable specific substrate utilization.
• Establishment and application of co-cultivation approaches for the co-utilization of several substrates
• Gathering and application of omics data regarding novel feedstocks utilization.
• Development and optimization of novel bioprocesses in bioreactors that use non-conventional feedstocks.

Keywords: Circular bioeconomy, cell-factories, natural resources, new added-value chains, bioprocesses, microbial feedstocks, metabolic engineering, synthetic biology

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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