SusChEM: Collaborative Research: Efficient biological activation and conversion of short-chain hydrocarbons

例如，通过使用水力压裂法和水平井钻井，石油和天然气储量开采的进步大大增加了美国可以经济地收获的天然气数量。这些储备还含有被称为天然气液体（NGL）的化合物，使用当前的炼油技术将其转化为有用的产品是昂贵的。幸运的是，许多微生物能够使用更有效和更便宜的途径消耗NGL用于生物质和能量生产。将研究这些转化的生物学机制，以设计表现出更高产物产量的生物体。通过消除废物的产生并提高这些微生物的有效性，由此产生的技术将更广泛地部署在水力压裂现场，提高美国的能源安全，同时减少天然气开采对环境的负面影响。该项目还将为传统上代表性不足的群体提供STEM研究机会，包括通过休斯顿的高中外展，通过南德克萨斯科学院，以及通过宾夕法尼亚州立大学的McNair计划，向高中生提供STEM研究机会。通过克隆和重新利用人们知之甚少的烷烃代谢酶，该项目旨在开发能够将短链烷烃转化为丁醇等目标产品的代谢工程微生物。利用烷基琥珀酸脱氢酶用于这样的生物催化应用需要在适合代谢工程的微生物宿主中功能性地表达它们的配偶体“活化酶”酶，其需要铁-硫簇掺入。将对已知或推定酶对的功能表达以及非同源活化酶的活化进行筛选。还将采用酶定向进化策略来实现烷基琥珀酸合酶活化。功能，异源合作伙伴将彻底的特点，提供新的见解活化酶烷基琥珀酸合酶的相互作用，这些和相关酶的生物技术应用的新机会。整体研究计划结合蛋白质和代谢工程，为生物催化过程建立一个新的工程平台，提高碳和能源效率。如果成功，该项目可以将NGL的商业加工从大型，资本和能源密集型的炼油厂加工转变为具有高质量和能源效率的小规模工艺。这反过来又将消除天然气加工过程中的一个主要废物来源。

Advances in the recovery of oil and gas reserves, through the use of fracking and horizontal well drilling, for example, have dramatically increased the amount of natural gas that can be economically harvested in the US. These reserves also contain compounds, know as natural gas liquids (NGLs), that are expensive to convert to useful products using current refinery technology. Fortunately, many microorganisms are capable of consuming NGLs for biomass and energy production using pathways that are much more efficient and less expensive. The biological mechanisms of these conversions will be studied in order to design organisms that exhibit even greater yield of product. By eliminating the generation of waste products and enhancing the effectiveness of these microbes, the resulting technology will be more widely deployed at fracking sites, increasing the energy security of the US while decreasing the negative environmental impact of natural gas extraction. This project will also provide STEM research opportunities to traditionally underrepresented groups, including to high school students through outreach to high schools in Houston, through the Science Academy of South Texas, and through the McNair program at Penn State.By cloning and repurposing poorly understood alkane-metabolizing enzymes, this project aims to develop metabolically engineered microorganisms capable of converting short-chain alkanes to target products such as butanol. Harnessing alkylsuccinate synthases for such biocatalytic applications requires functionally expressing their partner "activase" enzymes, that require iron-sulfur cluster incorporation, in a microbial host amenable to metabolic engineering. Screens for functional expression of known or putative enzyme pairs and for activation by non-cognate activases will be executed. Enzyme directed evolution strategies to achieve alkylsuccinate synthase activation will also be employed. Functional, heterologous partners will be thoroughly characterized, providing new insights into activase-alkylsuccinate synthase interaction, and new opportunities for biotechnological applications of these and related enzymes. The overall research plan combines protein and metabolic engineering to establish a novel engineering platform for biocatalytic processes with enhanced carbon and energy efficiencies. If successful, this project could transform the commercial processing of NGL away from large, capital- and energy-intensive refinery processing to smaller-scale processes with high mass and energy efficiency. This would in turn eliminate a major source of waste involved in natural gas processing.