BIOSURFING

New-to-nature biosurfactants by metabolic engineering: production and application

 Partecipanti

Mappa

 Word cloud

Esplora la "nuvola delle parole (Word Cloud) per avere un'idea di massima del progetto.

 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'This project aims to create new-to-nature and tailor-made biosurfactants through metabolic engineering of the unconventional yeast Candida bombicola. Biosurfactants produced by fermentation offer a worthy alternative to traditional surfactants, which are typically derived from non-renewable petrochemical resources and may cause environmental problems due to their ecotoxicity and poor biodegradability. Despite the clear advantages of biosurfactants, their overall use is hampered by the lack of structural variation. This is in sharp contrast to chemically produced surfactants where one can introduce variation by simply changing the building blocks. Structural variation is essential as (bio)surfactants find application in a very broad range of sectors. This project aims to alleviate this fundamental limitation by developing a generic biotechnological production technology for glycolipid biosurfactants. This will in turn significantly broaden the range of commercial biosurfactants, satisfying the need for structural diversity in the market. It is expected that this technology will result in a breakthrough penetration of glycolipid biosurfactants in the overall surfactant market, in this way helping to build the bio-based economy. Indeed, biosurfactants are a promising target for the biobased economy as the world surfactant production exceeds 13 Mton/year and is meanly based on petrochemical raw materials.

The very efficient biosurfactant producing yeast C. bombicola will be metabolically engineered such that all structural parts of the glycolipid biosurfactant molecule can be controlled: fatty acid tail, sugar moiety, acetylation and lactonization. New technology for metabolic engineering of unconventional organisms such as the use of meganucleases will be developed and strains will be evaluated by several “omics” approaches: proteomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics . Metabolically engineered production strains equipped with new combinations of genes and pathways will synthesize tailor-made and new-to-nature biosurfactants. For each target molecule, a fermentation process will be developed and the molecules will be evaluated for various applications (cleaning and cosmetics, medics and nanoscience). The project thus covers the whole innovation chain from basic research to production and application development. To achieve this goal, a complementary consortium of European academic and industrial partners (including a large participation of SMEs) has been formed that covers the whole range of required expertises. In brief, BIOSURFING promotes the use of biotechnology as a valid production process for novel industrial compounds, the development of biotechnological platform technologies and robust microbial industrial production systems. Moreover, the projects helps to realise the objectives of EU environmental and innovation policy initiatives, such as the Environmental Technology Action Plan and the EU Strategy for key enabling technologies.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Tailor-made petrol-based surfactants aid industrial mixing and dispersion. New metabolically engineered yeast strains promise to enable production of biosurfactants for a green alternative.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Surfactants (surface-active substances) lower surface tension. They are very important industrially, particularly in cleaning agents and cosmetics, where primarily non-renewable petrochemical resources are used for their manufacture.

Present in nature, one important biosurfactant helps lungs expand and contract. Its secretion is a deciding factor in a premature baby's survival. The use of biosurfactants reduces the environmental impact of industrial processes significantly, yet limitation in the types of naturally occurring biosurfactants impedes more widespread use.

In order to dramatically enhance the structural diversity of commercially available biosurfactants, scientists initiated the 'New-to-nature biosurfactants by metabolic engineering: Production and application' (http://www.biosurfing.eu/ (BIOSURFING)) project. They engineered the unusual yeast Starmerella bombicola as it is particularly good at producing glycolipid biosurfactants.

During the first year, four new strains of S. bombicola were developed and investigated. The modified yeasts' fermentation processes were subject to scale-up and some modifications introduced for an economical yet productive medium, fermentation parameters and to minimise foam production. As new-to-nature compounds have different properties to their natural counterparts, a new technique for product recovery and purification was developed for one particular strain and others adapted accordingly on the basis of tolerable levels of impurity production.

Partners have assessed samples and feedback prompted further modifications. Several applications were considered, including general surfactant use, cosmetics and cleaning products. The partners also looked at biological characteristics and behaviour at the nano- and mesomolecular scales.

BIOSURFING partners are continuing to explore the genomes, transcriptomes and proteomes of novel yeast strains and engineer more complex modifications. The researchers anticipate this will include the optimised use of transcription activator-like effector nucleases, artificial restriction enzymes that cut DNA strands at a specific site. The use of very specific restriction enzymes, meganucleases, is also a possibility.

The ability to bioengineer glycolipid biosurfactant structure in a way currently possible only with petrol-based surfactants has the potential to revolutionise the surfactant market. Such advances will open the door to new applications and processes while significantly reducing environmental impact.