Sustainable Bioprocessing Approaches for Large-Scale Jadomycin Production

Antimicrobial resistance is a serious public health issue, driving the urgent need for novel drugs. The most successful drug discovery route uses natural products from microbes and chemically modifies them. Promising derivatives then undergo animal/clinical trials, however, obtaining sufficient material from fermentations is an issue. Jadomycins show potential as novel therapeutic agents. When Streptomyces venezuelae bacteria are stressed and supplied with amino acids, different jadomycins are produced, providing a source of molecular scaffolds for creating drugs. The jadomycin process has several stages: (1) growth of bacteria, (2) application of environmental stress, (3) jadomycin production and (4) downstream processing. Our overall research goal is the development of sustainable fermentation technologies for optimal large-scale production of jadomycins. The proposed approach includes the evaluation of by-products from other industries (glycerol from biodiesel production and amino acids from fish processing) as components in microbial growth and production media for optimal jadomycin production. The combined use of glycerol and fish by-products in the jadomycin production process is an original and innovative way to: (1) enhance the economic and environmental sustainability of the jadomycin process and (2) improve the economic and environmental impact of the biodiesel and fish processing industries. The development of a fish-derived amino acid mixture for use in the jadomycin production media will allow a novel procedure to be developed where several jadomycins can be produced from a single fermentation. Continuous large-scale production of jadomycins will have industrial significance via decreased downtime and improved product consistency. This research would benefit all Canadians through the development of a novel drug and efficient production methods. It will also enable several Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP) to be trained.