microbial metabolism and biomolecules synthesis

Teacher(s)

Clerbaux Laure-Alix; Stenuit Benoît (coordinator);

Language

French

Prerequisites

The prerequisite(s) for this Teaching Unit (Unité d’enseignement – UE) for the programmes/courses that offer this Teaching Unit are specified at the end of this sheet.

Content

1) Microbial Fermentations and Metabolism of Eubacteria and Archaea

• Lactic acid fermentation
• Alcoholic fermentation
• Butyric acid fermentation
• Acetone-butanol fermentation
• Mixed-acid and butanediol fermentations
• Propionic and succinic acid fermentation
• Acetic acid fermentation
• Anaerobic respiration
• Methanogenesis

2) Production of Molecules of Interest by Microbial Strains

• Use of wild-type strains
• Metabolic engineering of microbial strains
• Production of specific chemical molecules
• Optimization of metabolic pathways for the production of compounds of interest

3) Secondary Metabolism and Public Health Issues

• Discussion of a specific issue to further explore functional aspects and public health perspectives

4) Protein Purification Techniques
5) Experimental Approaches to Microbial Metabolism

• Experimental study of fermentations
• Experimental study of secondary metabolism
• Experimental methods and procedures implemented in the laboratory

Teaching methods

The skills targeted by this course will be developed through lectures, including concrete examples and worked exercises, as well as supervised laboratory sessions, the evaluation of which is communicated to students (feedback).
Teaching certain parts of the course in English facilitates the acquisition of basic scientific vocabulary. The laboratory sessions aim to illustrate the principles of the scientific approach and to foster group communication skills.

Evaluation methods

The assessment of the course consists of two components:

• a continuous summative assessment of the laboratory work (4/20, i.e. 20% of the final grade): laboratory reports are assessed according to predefined criteria. The laboratory work is not specifically assessed through questions in the written examination;
• a written examination during the examination session (16/20, i.e. 80% of the final grade), consisting of questions requiring precise and concise answers, theoretical developments and/or problem-solving.

The written examination consists of a single assessment covering all the material taught. The exam grade, worth 16 points, is calculated on the basis of the total points obtained across the various questions.
Within the written examination, questions covering the content taught by B. Stenuit account for 11/16 of the examination marks (55% of the final grade), while questions covering the content taught by L.-A. Clerbaux account for 5/16 of the examination marks (25% of the final grade).
The final grade for the course unit is calculated out of 20 as follows:

• 4/20 (20%) for the laboratory work; and
• 16/20 (80%) for the written examination.

Other information

The course does not require any specific paid materials, and none are mandatory. The book "Bacterial Metabolism" by Gottschalk is recommended as an optional resource for more in-depth learning.

Online resources

The slides and the manual for the lab sessions are available on UCLouvain's Moodle platform.

Bibliography

Gerhard Gottschalk. Bacterial Metabolism, Second Edition, 1986. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1072-6

Teaching materials

• Bacterial Metabolism (Gottschalk)

Faculty or entity

> AGRO