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Featured Articles, chosen by the editorial team of AMB Express

Each month, one article is identified as ‘Featured Article’ by our editorial team. This initiative aims to highlight some of the current research results published in AMB Express that we feel will be of interest to our readers.

Engineering Bacillus subtilis J46 for efficient utilization of galactose through adaptive laboratory evolution

New Content ItemEfficient utilization of galactose by microorganisms can lead to the production of valuable bio-products and improved metabolic processes. While Bacillus subtilis has inherent pathways for galactose metabolism, there is potential for enhancement via evolutionary strategies. This study aimed to boost galactose utilization in B. subtilis using adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) and to elucidate the genetic and metabolic changes underlying the observed enhancements. The strains of B. subtilis underwent multiple rounds of adaptive laboratory evolution (approximately 5000 generations) in an environment that favored the use of galactose. This process resulted in an enhanced specific growth rate of 0.319 ± 0.005 h−1, a significant increase from the 0.03 ± 0.008 h−1 observed in the wild-type strains.Upon selecting the evolved strain BSGA14, a comprehensive whole-genome sequencing revealed the presence of 63 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). 
Two of them, located in the coding sequences of the genes araR and glcR, were found to be the advantageous mutations after reverse engineering. The strain with these two accumulated mutations, BSGALE4, exhibited similar specific growth rate on galactose to the evolved strain BSGA14 (0.296 ± 0.01 h−1).

Articles

Announcing the launch of In Review

AMB Express has launched In Review, a new option that provides authors with on-demand information on the status of their manuscript, enables them to share their work with funders and their research community, and allows their colleagues to comment and collaborate - all whilst their manuscript is under review.

Applied Microbiology Mini-reviews

Mini-reviews are summaries of recent insights or advances in specific research areas. This collection features all the mini-reviews published in AMB Express and provides a great account of important issues in the field of applied and industrial microbiology.

Aims and scope

AMB Express is a high quality journal that brings together research in the area of Applied and Industrial Microbiology with a particular interest in 'White Biotechnology' and 'Red Biotechnology'. The emphasis is on processes employing microorganisms, eukaryotic cell cultures or enzymes for the biosynthesis, transformation and degradation of compounds. This includes fine and bulk chemicals, polymeric compounds and enzymes or other proteins. Downstream processes are also considered. Integrated processes combining biochemical and chemical processes are also published.

Reports on the use of new procedures or tools in a clinical setting are only considered for publication if microorganisms, viruses, enzymes or other proteins from microorganisms or metabolites of microorganisms are involved as crucial and central part of the new procedure or tool.

Editor's quote

The high quality journal, AMB Express, was founded as a fully open access sister journal to Applied Microbiology and Technology about 6 years ago. Since then, the journal has become well-known to authors and reviewers whilst steadily growing. This year, we already have more than 400,000 downloads. Meanwhile, AMB Express has had several achievements: following indexing by ISI, it has since received two consecutive Thomson Reuters Science Citation Index Impact Factors. These Impact Factors were unexpectedly high, and we are very confident that they will continue to grow. What is, however, most important is that not only the number of manuscripts is increasing, but also their volume and the quality of their contents. The editors of AMB Express, the managing editor and I, will ensure that the journal’s performance and the quality of the published papers will continue to improve and that more excellent and highly cited papers will be published in AMB Express. Papers devoted to ‘Industrial Microbiology’ and with a particular interest in ‘White and Red Biotechnology’ are highly welcome; this also includes short papers in which important achievements are communicated.

Alexander Steinbüchel, Editor-in-Chief
(October 2018)
University of Münster

Annual Journal Metrics

  • 2022 Citation Impact
    3.7 - 2-year Impact Factor
    4.0 - 5-year Impact Factor
    1.019 - SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper)
    0.693 - SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)

    2023 Speed
    10 days submission to first editorial decision for all manuscripts (Median)
    68 days submission to accept (Median)

    2023 Usage 
    1,061,137 downloads
    284 Altmetric mentions