Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) are microbial storage polyesters that represent a renewable and environmentally friendly alternative to petrochemical plastics. However, their production and use are severely disadvantaged by the high production cost. The use of extremophilic PHA producers is one of the ways to reduce the cost of PHA production. Extremophiles bring numerous advantages resulting from the high robustness of the process against microbial contamination. In this doctoral thesis, attention was focused on the study of PHA production using selected halophilic and thermophilic microorganisms. Representatives of the genus Halomonas were mainly from public collections of microorganisms. Two promising PHA producers on waste frying oil were identified, namely Halomonas hydrothermalis and Halomonas neptunia. Both strains achieved good PHA yields in flask experiments. With the addition of suitable structural precursors, they were also able to produce copolymers with interesting material properties. However, in the proposed thesis, the main emphasis was placed on the study of PHA production using thermophilic microorganisms. As a part of the work, the isolation of thermophilic PHA producers from various thermophilic consortia (active sludge, compost, etc.) was performed. During isolations experiments, an original isolation procedure was designed using changes in osmotic pressure, the so-called osmoselection. Dozens of promising thermophilic PHA producers were obtained thanks to this original approach. They were taxonomically classified using 16S rRNA and tested for production potential. The most promising PHA producer was the isolate which was classified as Aneurinibacillus sp. H1. This bacterium is able to utilize a variety of substrates, including waste glycerol, to produce PHA. Even more important is the capability of synthesizing copolymers with a high content of 4-hydroxybutyrate. The monomer composition of the PHA copolymer and thus the material properties of the prepared copolymer can be controlled by suitable adjustment of the cultivation conditions. The prepared copolymer P(3HB-co-4HB) has unique properties and the great application potential in numerous high-end applications, for example in the field of health care, food industry or cosmetics.

Aplicou-se duas metodologias para isolamento de bactérias ainda \"não-cultivadas\" em amostras de água do mar de Ubatuba (SP, Brasil) e da Baía do Almirantado (Antártica). Pela adaptação do método de cultivo de alto desempenho (HTC), foi possível isolar 4 culturas bacterianas, nas quais duas podem ser consideradas ainda não-cultivadas e foram identificadas através das análises filogenéticas do gene rRNA 16S. Ao aplicar o método de inóculo em meio de cultura diluído 1/10, nas amostras de água do mar antártico, 81 isolados bacterianos foram identificados (gene rRNA 16S), sendo que um deles, é candidato a um isolado \"não-cultivado\". Outras abordagens fenotípicas e genômicas serão necessárias para definir a caracterização taxonômica destas bactérias \"não-cultivadas\" obtidas. A presença dos genes alk foi detectada em 11 isolados bacterianos antárticos, destes, um representante apresentou similaridade com uma sequência de gene alkM, recém-descrita em estudo prévio, em um dos clones de bibliotecas metagenômicas de sedimentos, na mesma região de amostragem. / Two different methods were applied for culturing marine bacteria in order to isolate uncultured representatives from Ubatuba seawater (SP, Brazil) and from Admiralty Bay (Antarctica). The adapted high-throughput culturing (HTC) procedures allowed to obtain four isolates. Two of them are uncultured bacteria candidates from coastal seawater studied and they were identified by phylogenetic analysis for 16S rRNA genes. The use of traditional plating on 1/10 dilution of agar media for the Antarctica seawater samples, allowed to isolate 81 cultures that were identified (16S rRNA gene), and one of these isolates is most likely to be an uncultured micro-organism. For taxonomic purposes, several others phenotypic and genomic methods must be applied for the further characterization of these uncultured bacteria. The alk genes were detected in eleven bacterial isolates from Antarctic. One of them, showed similarity to the sequence of an alkM gene, described in previous work in environmental clones libraries od sediments, from the same sampling area.

Aplicou-se duas metodologias para isolamento de bactérias ainda \"não-cultivadas\" em amostras de água do mar de Ubatuba (SP, Brasil) e da Baía do Almirantado (Antártica). Pela adaptação do método de cultivo de alto desempenho (HTC), foi possível isolar 4 culturas bacterianas, nas quais duas podem ser consideradas ainda não-cultivadas e foram identificadas através das análises filogenéticas do gene rRNA 16S. Ao aplicar o método de inóculo em meio de cultura diluído 1/10, nas amostras de água do mar antártico, 81 isolados bacterianos foram identificados (gene rRNA 16S), sendo que um deles, é candidato a um isolado \"não-cultivado\". Outras abordagens fenotípicas e genômicas serão necessárias para definir a caracterização taxonômica destas bactérias \"não-cultivadas\" obtidas. A presença dos genes alk foi detectada em 11 isolados bacterianos antárticos, destes, um representante apresentou similaridade com uma sequência de gene alkM, recém-descrita em estudo prévio, em um dos clones de bibliotecas metagenômicas de sedimentos, na mesma região de amostragem. / Two different methods were applied for culturing marine bacteria in order to isolate uncultured representatives from Ubatuba seawater (SP, Brazil) and from Admiralty Bay (Antarctica). The adapted high-throughput culturing (HTC) procedures allowed to obtain four isolates. Two of them are uncultured bacteria candidates from coastal seawater studied and they were identified by phylogenetic analysis for 16S rRNA genes. The use of traditional plating on 1/10 dilution of agar media for the Antarctica seawater samples, allowed to isolate 81 cultures that were identified (16S rRNA gene), and one of these isolates is most likely to be an uncultured micro-organism. For taxonomic purposes, several others phenotypic and genomic methods must be applied for the further characterization of these uncultured bacteria. The alk genes were detected in eleven bacterial isolates from Antarctic. One of them, showed similarity to the sequence of an alkM gene, described in previous work in environmental clones libraries od sediments, from the same sampling area.

Sepsis, commonly referred to as blood poisoning, is a serious medical condition characterized by a whole-body inflammatory state caused by microbial infection. Rapid treatment is crucial, however, traditional culture-based diagnostics usually takes 2-5 days.  The overall aim of the thesis is to develop microfluidic based sample preparation strategies, capable of isolating bacteria from whole blood for rapid sepsis diagnostics.  Although emerging technologies, such as microfluidics and “lab-on-a-chip” (LOC) devices have the potential to spur the development of protocols and affordable instruments, most often sample preparation is performed manually with procedures that involve handling steps prone to introducing artifacts, require skilled technicians and well-equipped, expensive laboratories.  Here, we propose the development of methods for fast and efficient sample preparation that can isolate bacteria from whole blood by using microfluidic techniques with potential to be incorporated in LOC systems. We have developed two means for high throughput bacteria isolation: size based sorting and selective lysis of blood cells. To process the large blood samples needed in sepsis diagnostics, we introduce novel manufacturing techniques that enable scalable parallelization for increased throughput in miniaturized devices. The novel manufacturing technique uses a flexible transfer carrier sheet, water-dissolvable release material, poly(vinyl alcohol), and a controlled polymerization inhibitor to enable highly complex polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) structures containing thin membranes and 3D fluidic networks. The size based sorting utilizes inertial microfluidics, a novel particles focusing method that operates at extremely high flow rates. Inertial focusing in flow through a single inlet and two outlet, scalable parallel channel devices, was demonstrated with filtration efficiency of >95% and a flowrate of 3.2 mL/min. Finally, we have developed a novel microfluidic based sample preparation strategy to continuously isolate bacteria from whole blood for downstream analysis. The method takes advantage of the fact that bacteria cells have a rigid cell wall protecting the cell, while blood cells are much more susceptible to chemical lysis. Whole blood is continuously mixed with saponin for primary lysis, followed by osmotic shock in water. We obtained complete lysis of all blood cells, while more than 80% of the bacteria were readily recovered for downstream processing. Altogether, we have provided new bacteria isolation methods, and improved the manufacturing techniques and microfluidic components that, combined offer the potential for affordable and effective sample preparation for subsequent pathogen identification, all in an automated LOC format. / QC 20120611