(664f) Protein Engineering As a Tool to Improve the Surfactant Activity of OmpA Protein from Escherichia coli

The study and investigation of new products to replace those that are harmful to the environment has become very important these days in many fields. Surfactants are constituents mostly derived from petroleum, capable of reducing the surface tension on interfaces. Their slow degradation and high contamination in nature make the applications of these substances a huge concern. This is the main reason why bio-surfactants are really attractive now days. These molecules are obtained from different microorganisms during the occurrence of natural processes. Research has been growing in this matter, aiming to satisfy the necessities of effective surfactants that are not aggressive to the environment. We demonstrated in previous studies the surface tension activity of the transmembrane protein OmpA from Escherichia coli [1]. Here, we carried out DNA shuffling for OmpA in order to improve its interface activity.  To select the best candidates we evaluated surface tension changes when exposing protein mutants to water-dodecane emulsions and the time elapsed until destabilization. Moreover, additional underpinnings behind the potential mechanisms for destabilization of the mutants were analyzed by obtaining the drop size distribution profile in time. References