Chassis!

Rhodopseudomonas palustris has an extraordinary metabolic versatility; this microorganism is able to grow in a wide variety of environmental conditions. R palustris obtain energy by different mechanism including anoxygenic photosynthesis, aerobic and anaerobic respiration^1.

When O2 tension is little, light energy can be harnessed by a photosynthetic electron transport chain that has similar features to those used by plants and other oxygen-evolving organisms (3). During photosynthetic growth, R. palustris is capable of use either carbon dioxide (CO2) or organic carbon sources.

Biotechnological potential

R. palustris is an excellent chassis because is useful in a wide variety of biotechnological applications because of its regulation systems that allow it to sense environmental conditions.

Why synthetic biology in R. palustris?

The Synthetic Biology application in R. palustris could help to harness its biotechnological potential.
We want to investigate the functioning of 2 orthologous regulation systems that respond to oxygen and light inspired in Rhodobacter sphaeroides regulatory systems.
Also we aim to generate a set of regulatory biobricks for Purple Non-Sulfur Photosynthetic Bacteria, something that nowadays has not been reported.

References
1. Hunter CN, Daldal F, Thurnauer MC, Beatty JT: (2009) The Purple Phototrophic Bacteria. Springer; 200928. pp. 707–725.
2. Harwood et. al. (2004) Complete genome sequence of the metabolically versatile photosynthetic bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris, Nature Biotechnology Volume 2, Number 1, January 2004
3. Imam S., Yilmaz S., Sohmen Y, Gorzalski A., Reed J. Noguera D., Donohue T. (2011) iRsp1095: A genome- scale reconstruction of theRhodobacter sphaeroides metabolic network BMC Systems Biology 2011, 5:116