Chapter 8

Pseudomonas putida

An Environment Friendly Bacterium

Sneha S. Das and Gunderao H. Kathwate*

8.1 Introduction

The world’s population is rapidly increasing. The current global population is estimated to be

7.97 billion people as of 2020. This has obvious consequences for the world in which we live.

To meet the needs of a growing population, soil, water and air pollution are unavoidable. The use

of living organisms to degrade pollutants in order to prevent pollution, restore natural surroundings

and prevent further pollution is known as bioremediation. This process employs microorganisms

such as bacteria, fungi, algae and others. Pollutants including pesticides are metabolized and used

as carbon or nitrogen sources for survival. Microorganisms can also be used to synthesize a number

of metabolites, including anabolites and catabolites. Recombinant DNA techniques can be used to

modify wild-type organisms.

Microorganisms can also be used to synthesize a range of metabolites, including pesticide

and other xenobiotic compounds. Traditional methods and recombinant DNA techniques are being

used to improve the productivity of wild-type organisms. This can be accomplished through the

selection of mutants with desired phenotypes in controlled environmental conditions. Microbial

techniques have attempted to compete with chemical product synthesis. Rising prices for petroleum,

a non-renewable resource, necessitates the use of microbial production. First, advances in metabolic

engineering techniques have resulted in engineered microorganisms that produce an excess of

metabolites and intermediates. Another significant advancement is “heterologous expression of

genes”, which involves introducing genes from other organisms into microbial cells, that then

express these foreign genes.

Second, the compounds produced by microorganisms are highly specific in terms of structure,

position and stereochemistry. As a result, the cost of the downstream process is reduced. Third,

unlike chemical synthesis, microbial processes do not use toxic heavy metals as catalysts, and the

operating temperatures and pressures are lower. Microorganisms can produce valuable chemicals as

well as degrade toxic pollutants. Sophisticated recombinant DNA techniques are used for targeted

genetic manipulations, changing existing pathways or heterologous expression of genes in a new

external pathway (Santos and Stephanopoulos 2008). However, the relationship between phenotype

and genotype in organisms is extremely complex. To achieve the desired phenotype, a combination

of genome editing tools are used.

Department of Biotechnology, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune 411007.

* Corresponding author: santoshkathwate@gmail.com