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Atmospheric and room temperature plasma (ARTP) as a new powerful mutagenesis tool

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Abstract

Developing rapid and diverse microbial mutation tool is of importance to strain modification. In this review, a new mutagenesis method for microbial mutation breeding using the radio-frequency atmospheric-pressure glow discharge (RF APGD) plasma jets is summarized. Based on the experimental study, the helium RF APGD plasma jet has been found to be able to change the DNA sequences significantly, indicating that the RF APGD plasma jet would be a powerful tool for the microbial mutagenesis with its outstanding features, such as the low and controllable gas temperatures, abundant chemically reactive species, rapid mutation, high operation flexibility, etc. Then, with the RF APGD plasma generator as the core component, a mutation machine named as atmospheric and room temperature plasma (ARTP) mutation system has been developed and successfully employed for the mutation breeding of more than 40 kinds of microorganisms including bacteria, fungi, and microalgae. Finally, the prospect of the ARTP mutagenesis is discussed.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been supported by the Tsinghua University Initiative Scientific Research Program (No. 2011Z01019), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 10972119 and 61104204), and JST CREST of Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, People’s Republic of China

    Xue Zhang, Li-Yan Wang, Chong Zhang & Xin-Hui Xing

  2. Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, People’s Republic of China

    Xiao-Fei Zhang, He-Ping Li & Cheng-Yu Bao

  3. Beijing Si Qing Yuan Bio-Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing, 100084, People’s Republic of China

    Li-Yan Wang

Authors
  1. Xue Zhang
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  2. Xiao-Fei Zhang
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  3. He-Ping Li
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  4. Li-Yan Wang
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  5. Chong Zhang
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  6. Xin-Hui Xing
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  7. Cheng-Yu Bao
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to He-Ping Li or Xin-Hui Xing.

Additional information

Xue Zhang and Xiao-Fei Zhang contributed equally to this work.

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Zhang, X., Zhang, XF., Li, HP. et al. Atmospheric and room temperature plasma (ARTP) as a new powerful mutagenesis tool. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 98, 5387–5396 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-014-5755-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-014-5755-y

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