Biofilm application in the microbial biochemicals production process

Yujia Jiang^a, Yansong Liu^a, Xiaoyu Zhang^a, Hao Gao^a, Lu Mou^a, Mengdi Wu^a, Wenming Zhang^a,b, Fengxue Xin^a,b, Min Jiang^a,b

State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, College of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211800, PR China.

Abstract

Biofilms can be naturally formed through the attachment of microorganisms on the supporting materials. However, natural biofilms formed in the environment may cause some detrimental effects, such as the equipment contamination and food safety issues et al. On the contrary, biofilms mediated microbial fermentation provides a promising approach for the efficient biochemicals production owing to the properties of self-immobilization, high resistance to toxic reactants and maintenance of long-term cells activity. While few reviews have specifically addressed the biological application of biofilms in the microbial fermentation process. Accordingly, this review will comprehensively summarize the biofilms formation mechanism and potential functions in the microbial fermentation process. Furthermore, the construction strategies for the formation of stable biofilms through synthetic biology technology or the modification of suitable supporting materials will be also discussed. The application of biofilms mediated fermentation will provide an outlook for the biorefinery platform in the future.

Keywords: Biofilm, Biochemical production, Supporting material, Bioprocessing, Microbial consortia.