This book illustrates the major trends in applied microbiology research
with immediate or potential industrial applications. The papers proposed
reflect the diversity of the application fields. New microbial
developments have been done as well in the food and health sectors than
in the environmental technology or in the fine chemical production. All
the microbial genera are involved: yeast, fungi and bacteria. The
development of biotechnology in parallel with the industrial
microbiology has enabled the application of microbial diversity to our
socio-economical world. The remarkable properties of microbes, inherent
in their genetic and enzymatic material, allow a wide range of
applications that can improve our every day life. Recent studies for
elucidating the molecular basis of the physiological processes in
micro-organisms are essential to improve and to control the metabolic
pathways to overproduce metabolites or enzymes of industrial interest.
The genetic engineering is of course one of the disciplines offering new
horizons for the « fantastic microbial factory » . Studies of the
culture parameter incidence on the physiology and the morphology are
essential to control the response of the micro-organisms before its
successful exploitation at the industrial scale. For this purpose,
fundamental viewpoints are necessary. Development of novel approaches to
characterise micro-organisms would also facilitate the understanding of
the inherent metabolic diversity of the microbial world, in terms of
adaptation to a wide range of biotopes and establishment of microbial
consortia.
