Research Projects

Violacein, a bisindole bacterial pigment, has numerous therapeutic properties and is a natural dye with different color tones. However, low yields, high costs of commercial media, expensive downstream processing, and heterologous expression of the vio gene cluster in different hosts have limited its development as a drug and bio-dye. To reduce costs, a project proposes genetically manipulating C. violaceum using agro-industrial wastes to overproduce violacein. The C. violaceum will be engineered using a CRISPR-Cas9 toolkit to accumulate violacein precursor L-tryptophan, knocking out non-essential competitive pathways of tryptophan biosynthesis. L-tryptophan will also be overproduced in C. violaceum by overexpressing rate-limiting enzymes of the violacein pathway. Higher violacein production will be achieved using economic agro-industrial wastes, culture conditions optimization through the Box-Behnken Design model, and a laboratory-scale fermentor. This project will be the first of its kind, allowing for cheaper production of violacein, which could promote further research in developing violacein as a drug molecule and bio-dye.