Xavier Vallvé, cap de l'Oficina de Valorització i Patents de la UAB

A la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, l'Oficina de Valorització i Patents (OVP) és l'encarregada de gestionar la propietat industrial de la Universitat, des de la sol·licitud de la patent fins a la promoció i captació de finançament i la transferència dels resultats de recerca mitjançant llicències. Al capdavant de l'Oficina hi ha Xavier Vallvé, bioquímic i Agent de Patents Europeu. En la següent entrevista ens explica com sumar valor social i econòmic a la recerca desenvolupada a la Universitat

A step forward to improve recombinant protein production in Pichia pastoris : from specific growth rate effect on protein secretion to carbon-starving conditions as advanced strategy

The recombinant protein production platform based on the GAP promoter and Pichia pastoris as a host has become a very promising system from an industrial point of view. The need for highly productive bioprocesses gives grounds for the optimization of fermentation strategies maximizing yields and/or productivities, which are often associated with cell growth. Coherent with previous studies, a positive effect of high specific growth rate (μ) on the productivity was observed in carbon-limited chemostat cultivations secreting an antibody fragment. Notably, no significant impact of this factor could be observed in the balance intra- and extracellular of the product. Accordingly, fed-batch cultures operating at a constant high μ were conducted. Furthermore, short carbon-starving periods were introduced along the exponential substrate feeding phase. Strikingly, it was observed an important increase of specific production rate (qP) during such short carbon-starving periods in relation to the exponential substrate feeding intervals. Therefore, the application of carbon-starving periods as an innovative operational strategy was proposed, resulting into increments up to 50% of both yields and total production. The implementation of the proposed substrate feeding profiles should be complementary to cell engineering strategies to improve the relation qP vs μ, thereby enhancing the overall bioprocess efficiency

The Machreck Energy Development - Solar project MED-Solar

Postprint (published version

Reuse of textile wastewater treated by moving bed biofilm reactor coupled with membrane bioreactor

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: [ Yang, X, López-Grimau, V, Vilaseca, M, et al. Reuse of textile wastewater treated by moving bed biofilm reactor coupled with membrane bioreactor. Coloration Technol. 2021; 137: 484– 492. https://doi.org/10.1111/cote.12543], which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/cote.12543. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.A laboratory-scale pilot plant of moving bed biofilm reactor coupled with membrane bioreactor (MBBR-MBR) was studied with regard to wastewater treatment in the textile industry, and the reuse feasibility of treated water was investigated. The pilot plant comprised two connected parts: an aerobic tank filled with carriers and a submerged membrane tank. The MBBR-MBR system reduced the hydraulic retention time to 1 day, which is very promising compared with conventional biological treatment in the textile industry. The removal efficiency of chemical oxygen demand reached 93%, which is almost the maximum for a biological process treating this type of wastewater, as well as the colour removal performance, which achieved 85%. Additionally, 99% of total suspended solids were removed due to filtration. Furthermore, new dyeing processes reusing the treated water were performed. The quality of the new dyed fabrics with treated water was compared with reference fabrics. Colour differences between new dyed fabrics and reference fabrics were found to be within the general requirement of the textile industry (¿ECMC(2:1) < 1). The reuse of treated water in new dyeing processes is beneficial both for the industry and for the environment, because the textile sector is an intensive water consumer during both the dyeing and finishing processes.This study is co-funded by ACCIÓ (Generalitat de Catalunya) within the REGIREU Project (COMRDI16-1-0062).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Comprehensive clone screening and evaluation of fed-batch strategies in a microbioreactor and lab scale stirred tank bioreactor system : application on Pichia pastoris producing Rhizopus oryzae lipase

Background: In Pichia pastoris bioprocess engineering, classic approaches for clone selection and bioprocess optimization at small/micro scale using the promoter of the alcohol oxidase 1 gene (PAOX1), induced by methanol, present low reproducibility leading to high time and resource consumption. - Results: An automated microfermentation platform (RoboLector) was successfully tested to overcome the chronic problems of clone selection and optimization of fed-batch strategies. Different clones from Mut+P. pastoris phenotype strains expressing heterologous Rhizopus oryzae lipase (ROL), including a subset also overexpressing the transcription factor HAC1, were tested to select the most promising clones. The RoboLector showed high performance for the selection and optimization of cultivation media with minimal cost and time. Syn6 medium was better than conventional YNB medium in terms of production of heterologous protein. The RoboLector microbioreactor was also tested for different fed-batch strategies with three clones producing different lipase levels. Two mixed substrates fed-batch strategies were evaluated. The first strategy was the enzymatic release of glucose from a soluble glucose polymer by a glucosidase, and methanol addition every 24 hours. The second strategy used glycerol as co-substrate jointly with methanol at two different feeding rates. The implementation of these simple fed-batch strategies increased the levels of lipolytic activity 80-fold compared to classical batch strategies used in clone selection. Thus, these strategies minimize the risk of errors in the clone selection and increase the detection level of the desired product. Finally, the performance of two fed-batch strategies was compared for lipase production between the RoboLector microbioreactor and 5 liter stirred tank bioreactor for three selected clones. In both scales, the same clone ranking was achieved. - Conclusion: The RoboLector showed excellent performance in clone selection of P. pastoris Mut+ phenotype. The use of fed-batch strategies using mixed substrate feeds resulted in increased biomass and lipolytic activity. The automated processing of fed-batch strategies by the RoboLector considerably facilitates the operation of fermentation processes, while reducing error-prone clone selection by increasing product titers.The scale-up from microbioreactor to lab scale stirred tank bioreactor showed an excellent correlation, validating the use of microbioreactor as a powerful tool for evaluating fed-batch operational strategies

Lgr5 Does Not Vary Throughout the Menstrual Cycle in Endometriotic Human Eutopic Endometrium

Endometriosis is characterized by the abnormal presence of endometrium outside of the uterus, resulting in pelvic pain and infertility. The leucine-rich repeat-containing G protein-coupled receptor 5 (LGR5) has been postulated to be a marker of stem cells in the endometrium. However, LGR5 + cells have a macrophage-like phenotype in this tissue, so it is unclear what role LGR5 + cells actually play in the endometrium. Macrophages serve an important function in the endometrium to maintain fertility, while LGR5 + cells generally have a role in tumor progression and are involved in invasion in some cancers. We sought to determine whether LGR5 + cells vary across the menstrual cycle in women with endometriosis and whether there are implications for LGR5 in the aggressiveness of endometriosis and reproductive outcomes. We performed immunofluorescence, flow cytometry, and primary culture in vitro experiments on eutopic and ectopic endometrium from healthy and endometriosis patients and observed that neither LGR5 + cells nor LGR5 expression varied throughout the cycle. Interestingly, we observed that LGR5 + cell percentage overexpressing CD163 (anti-inflammatory marker) was higher in healthy endometrium, suggesting that in endometriosis, endometrium presents a more pro-inflammatory phenotype that likely leads to poor obstetric outcomes. We also observed higher levels of LGR5 + cells in ectopic lesions compared to eutopic endometrium and specifically in deep infiltrating endometriosis, indicating that LGR5 could be involved in progression and aggressiveness of the disease

TP53-Induced Glycolysis and Apoptosis Regulator (TIGAR) Is Upregulated in Lymphocytes Stimulated with Concanavalin A

The glycolytic modulator TP53-Inducible Glycolysis and Apoptosis Regulator (TIGAR) is overexpressed in several types of cancer and has a role in metabolic rewiring during tumor development. However, little is known about the role of this enzyme in proliferative tissues under physiological conditions. In the current work, we analysed the role of TIGAR in primary human lymphocytes stimulated with the mitotic agent Concanavalin A (ConA). We found that TIGAR expression was induced in stimulated lymphocytes through the PI3K/AKT pathway, since Akti-1/2 and LY294002 inhibitors prevented the upregulation of TIGAR in response to ConA. In addition, suppression of TIGAR expression by siRNA decreased the levels of the proliferative marker PCNA and increased cellular ROS levels. In this model, TIGAR was found to support the activity of glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH), the first enzyme of the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP), since the inhibition of TIGAR reduced G6PDH activity and increased autophagy. In conclusion, we demonstrate here that TIGAR is upregulated in stimulated human lymphocytes through the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway, which contributes to the redirection of the carbon flux to the PPP