SBIR Phase II: Low-Cost, High-Purity Biobased Glucaric Acid

这个小企业技术转让（STTR）第二阶段项目的更广泛影响是低成本，高纯度的生物基葡萄糖二酸生产，这是一种具有广泛应用的化合物。 这种葡糖二酸的生产将使日常材料的石油基来源（如衣服中的尼龙或两升瓶中的PET）发生广泛变化，从而使可再生资源产生的生物基产品成为可能。同样，该技术将使水处理系统中使用的传统磷酸盐演变为更安全，更具成本效益的替代品。 该项目将开发一种菌株、发酵工艺和可扩展的下游分离工作流程，以葡萄糖为原料生产低成本、高纯度的葡萄糖二酸。微生物发酵代表了从可再生资源（例如纤维素糖）生产燃料和有价值的化学品的有吸引力的选择。微生物非常适合于碳水化合物原料的转化;它们的代谢工程的几个例子已经被证明可以将这些原料转化为具有工业价值的非天然化学品和材料，通常作为石油产品的直接替代品。另一方面，来自糖氧化的产物提出了新的、较少探索的挑战，因为需要将葡萄糖引导到产物途径中，而不是分解代谢糖以用于生物质和能量生产的竞争性途径。最初的方法，如删除糖酵解和其他竞争途径，由于细胞复杂的调节回路，导致葡萄糖摄取不良。本项目拟开发E.该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

The broader impact of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project is the low-cost, high-purity biobased production of glucaric acid, a compound with a broad range of applications. This production of glucaric acid will enable a broad change from petroleum-based sources for everyday materials, such as nylon in clothes or PET in two-liter bottles, to a bio-based product generated from renewable resources. Similarly, this technology will allow an evolution beyond the traditional phosphates used in water treatment systems to a safer, cost-effective alternative. The proposed project will develop a strain, fermentation process, and scalable downstream separation workflow to produce low-cost, high-purity glucaric acid from glucose as a feedstock. Microbial fermentation represents an attractive option for the production of fuels and valuable chemicals from renewable resources, such as cellulosic sugars. Microbes are well suited for the conversion of carbohydrate feedstocks; several examples of their metabolic engineering have been demonstrated to direct these feedstocks to non-natural chemicals and materials of industrial value, often as drop-in replacements for petroleum products. On the other hand, products derived from sugar oxidation pose a new, less explored challenge because of the need to direct glucose into the product pathway rather than the competing path to catabolize the sugar for biomass and energy production. Initial methods, such as deletion of glycolysis and other competing pathways, result in poor glucose uptake because of the cell's complex regulatory circuits. This project proposes to develop strains of E. coli that can efficiently take up glucose while also directing it to the glucaric acid pathway.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.