SGER: Yeast as an Enzyme Source for Thioredoxin Biotechnology

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This is an award under the Small Grant for Exploratory Research program. The immediate objective of the project is to test the effectiveness of the yeast NADP/thioredoxin system in activating seed proteins, notably the proteins of flour and soybean. The long term objective is to develop a safe and inexpensive processing technology for baking and other industry that uses flour from wheat, soybean and other seeds. Preliminary studies carried out in the PI's laboratory in collaboration with the French group yielded an interesting discovery that the intramolecular disulfide groups of diverse proteins including a number of commercially important proteins, are reduced (activated) by the indigenous NADP/thioredoxin system, consisting of NADPH, NADP-thioredoxin reductase and thioredoxin. Potential application of the NADP/thioredoxin system ranges from basic biology research to cereal technology to medicine and nutrition. Specifically with the SGER award, Dr. Buchanan will determine if the yeast-based NADP/thioredoxin system can be developed into an efficient tool to explore application potential of the thioredoxin technology. All work up to this point has been done using E. coli system which has proven not appropriate for cereal technology and nutrition applications.