Light and drought: bioprospecting the microbiota of highly-irradiated and dry environments
- Autores: Esther Molina Menor
- Directores de la Tesis: Manuel Porcar Miralles (dir. tes.), Juli Peretó Magraner (codir. tes.), Albert Quintana Romero (codir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat de València ( España ) en 2023
- Idioma: inglés
- Número de páginas: 258
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Carles Pedrós-Alió (presid.), Rosa Aznar Novella (secret.), Juana María Navarro Llorens (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Biomedicina y Biotecnología por la Universitat de València (Estudi General)
- Materias:
- Enlaces
- Tesis en acceso abierto en: TESEO
- Resumen
Bioprospecting is the search for microorganisms, or their parts, to develop biotechnological tools. Extremophilic environments, such as highly irradiated and dry environments host interesting microbes from the biotechnological perspective, as they are able to cope with high doses of radiation and desiccation.
The work described in this thesis aims at characterizing the microbial profiles associated to natural and artificial surfaces subjected to irradiation (the Mediterranean rocky-shore, the Tabernas Desert and hospital UV cabins), through a holistic strategy including culture-independent and -dependent techniques, and emphasizing the improvement of the recovery of the maximum microbial diversity and the description of novel taxa through the combination of simple culturing strategies. The combination of culture media and incubation conditions has resulted in the isolation of a high number of different genera, potentially new taxa and biotechnologically-relevant strains, as evidenced by the description of three new Kineococcus and two Belnapia species. Moreover, NGS allowed us to determine differences and similarities among the studied sites, and within the microbial collections.
In parallel, the biotechnological and biomedical applications of these microorganisms have been investigated, as well as the use of alternative culture configurations of solid-state fermentation. Specifically, the antioxidant potential strains isolated from the Mediterranean supratidal zone was assessed through in vitro and in vivo assays. Moreover, we further tested the antioxidant potential of strain CR10 (Micrococcus luteus), a carotenoid-synthetizing bacteria, in a model of a human mitochondrial disease (Leigh Syndrome), as a collaboration with the group of Mitochondrial Neuropathology in the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Although the administration of a microbial preparation had no beneficial effects on the diseased mice, serendipity led us to identify that maltodextrin was responsible of a reduction in neuroinflammation, increased lifespan and variability in the abundance of Akkermansia spp. in the gut.