ABSTRACT
Sustainable development requires the promotion of environmental management and a constant search for new technologies to treat vast quantities of wastes. Biotreatment, the processing of wastes using living organisms, is an environmentally friendly, relatively simple and cost-effective alternative to physiochemical cleanup options. Bioreactors have been engineered to overcome the physical, chemical and biological limiting factors of biotreatment processes in highly controlled
systems. The versatility in the design of the bioreactor allows treatment of a wide range of wastes under optimized conditions. It is necessary to consider various microorganisms having a variety of genomes and expressed transcripts and proteins. In the traditional genomic technique, a number of analyses are often required
The two elements needed for an efficient utilization of aromatic compounds by bacteria are the enzymes responsible for their degradation and the regulatory elements that control the expression of the catabolic microbial biodegradation. Bioremediation and biotransformation operans offers to ensure the more efficient output depending on the presence/absence of the aromatic compounds or alternative environmental signals. Transcriptional regulation seems to be the more common and/or most studied mechanism of expression of catabolic clusters, although post-transcriptional control also plays an important role. Transcription is dependent on specific regulators that channel the information between specific signal and the target gene(s). A more complex network of signals connects the metabolic and the energetic status of the cell to the expression of particular catabolic clusters, over-imposing the specific transcriptional regulatory control. In general, the regulatory networks that control the operons involved in the catabolism of aromatic compounds are endowed with an extraordinary degree of plasticity and adaptability. Elucidating such regulatory networks pave the way for a better understanding of the regulatory intricacies that control microbial biodegradation of aromatic compounds, which are key issues for the rational design of more efficient recombinant biodegraders, bacterial biosensors and biocatalysts.
