Ligniflex: A synthetic biology platform to optimise the process and products of enzymatic lignin disruption

该项目将开发新的生物工艺，将木质素--世界上最大的木质纤维生物质以及纸张和纸浆加工的天然副产品之一--转化为高价值化学积木的可持续来源。它还将展示取代不可持续的石化衍生原材料的可行性，这些原材料目前用于化学品、塑料和包装的制造。经过验证的、可操作的工业酵母菌株将使用组合遗传学、生物信息学和合成生物学的方法进行工程设计，以允许数百种特定的酶组合进行测试，以实现最佳的木质素降解。该项目将展示合成生物学构建和优化适合于经济、酶法降解木质素的工业微生物的潜力，并将其结果表征为潜在的化工新原料。

This project will develop new bioprocesses to convert lignin, one of the world’s largest natural by-products of lignocellulosic biomass and paper and pulp processing, to a sustainable source of high value chemical building blocks. It will also demonstrate feasibility to replace unsustainable petrochemical derived raw materials, currently used in the manufacture of chemicals, plastics and packaging. Proven, manipulable strains of industrial yeast will be engineered using methods of, combinatorial genetics, bioinformatics and synthetic biology to permit many hundreds of specific enzyme combinations to be tested for optimal lignin degradation. The project will demonstrate the potential for synthetic biology to construct and optimise industrial microbes suitable for economical, enzymatic degradation of lignin with characterisation of the resulting products as potential new raw materials for the chemical industries.