The Transcriptional Landscape of the Production Organism Pseudomonas putida

Bacterial cell factories represent a valid alternative to fossil fuel-based production. A promising bacterium that can be optimized as cell factory is Pseudomonas putida. However, its development in bioproduction applications poses some challenges including a clear understanding of the bacterial system biology. This thesis has the aim of facilitating the development of P. putida KT2440 as a bacterial cell factory by investigating the transcriptome of the bacterium under different conditions (e.g. growth and stress). The main goals are the identification of differentially expressed genes, which provide information on bacterial adaptation to different environments, and the identification of non-coding RNAs, which regulate gene expression. This work focuses on several aspects of P. putida highlighting genomic features such as transcription start sites (TSSs), RNA regulatory elements such as riboswitches and small RNAs (sRNAs), metabolic pathways and transporter systems. The results reported here significantly increase knowledge of the P. putida transcriptome, adaptation mechanisms, and reveal novel bacterial features that will aid the design and optimization of the bacterium as a cell factory.