Corynebacterium glutamicum (ATCC 13032)
A GRAS industrial workhorse used for food-grade amino-acid production at megaton scale. Robust, stress-tolerant, and easy to grow at high density — well suited to industrial-process and chemical monitoring.
Identity
- Species
- Corynebacterium glutamicum
- Strain
- ATCC 13032
- NCBI taxid
- 196627
- Genome
- GCF_000011325.1
Safety
- Biosafety level
- BSL-1
- Pathogenic
- No
- GRAS
- Yes — EFSA QPS; decades of safe use producing food/feed amino acids (glutamate, lysine).
- Biocontainment
- Auxotrophic containment standard in industrial strains.
- BSL-1 basis
- ABSA Risk Group 1; EFSA QPS.
Non-pathogenic relative of C. diphtheriae but lacks the toxin and virulence factors; Gram-positive.
Traits
- Gram
- positive
- Oxygen
- facultative
- Optimal temp
- 30 °C
- Doubling time
- ~60 min
- Spore-forming
- No
- Transformable
- Yes
Engineering
- CRISPR tooling
- CRISPRi (dCas9) and CRISPR base editing established (Cleto et al. 2016).
- Common promoters
- Ptac, Ptuf (strong), PgntK
- Selection markers
- KanR, SpcR
- Toolkits
- CGXII media systems, SEVA-compatible vectors
Biosensors using this chassis
Cadmium sensor (CadR + CRISPRi)
Detects cadmium in industrial wastewater. A CadR/CadC metal-responsive regulator gates a CRISPRi circuit driving a fluorescent reporter, in the robust GRAS industrial chassis Corynebacterium glutamicum.
Chromate sensor (ChrR + CRISPRi)
Detects toxic hexavalent chromium (chromate) in industrial water. The ChrR chromate-responsive regulator gates a CRISPRi circuit driving a fluorescent reporter, in the robust GRAS industrial chassis Corynebacterium glutamicum.
Lysine sensor (LysG + CRISPRa)
Detects L-lysine — the flagship amino-acid product of C. glutamicum. The native LysG transcriptional sensor (used in the classic pSenLys biosensor) gates a CRISPRa circuit driving a fluorescent reporter, for strain screening and process monitoring.