China Partnership on Synthetic Biology: Chemicals and fuels from waste gas using gas-eating Microbes

中国合成生物学合作伙伴：利用食气微生物从废气中提取化学品和燃料

• 批准号: 1803744
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Nottingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2016 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-1803744
• 关键词: China; Partnership; Synthetic; Biology; Chemicals

BACKGROUND: One of the greatest challenges facing industry and society is the future sustainable production of chemicals and fuels from non-food resources while at the same time reducing Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Accordingly, in recent years attention has turned to the use of bilogical fermentation processes. However, to compete with existing fuel and chemical manufacturing processes based on petrochemical derived raw materials, low cost feedstocks are essential, since the feedstock typically contributes to >60% of the overall production cost. To date, the focus has been on the use of lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks. The exploitation of biomass, however, is reliant on an energy intensive pre-treatment step, and thereafter, the addition of costly exogenous hydrolytic enzymes needed to convert the partially deconstructed biomass into the sugars needed by the fermentative process organisms. The costs involved are making the development of economic processes extremely challenging. An exciting alternative is to use waste gases as the feedstock. Gas fermenting microbes are able to grow on C1 compounds, such as carbon monoxide/dioxide (CO/ CO2) and methane (CH4) derived from non-food sources, converting this low cost carbon into the chemicals and fuels modern society needs. Fortunately, C1 gases are an abundant waste resource and may be, such as waste gases from industry (e.g. steel manufacturing, oil refining, coal and natural/shale gas) as well as 'synthesis gas' (CO and H2) produced from sustainable resources, such as biomass and domestic/ agricultural wastes. This enables the production of fuels and chemicals in any industrialized geography without the consumption of valuable food or land resources.AIM: SBRC Nottingham, together with Sheffield and Oxford Brookes, have been awarded a 4-year BBSRC-China partnership award with the Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Shanghai. The partnership aims to exploit gas fermentation to produce chemical commodities. The partnership will implement process improvements through the identification of new microbial chassis, or the modification of existing chassis, that are more effective in using C1 compounds as feedstocks. STRATEGY: We will explore a number of chassis and assemble the necessary tools (parts and modules) and strategies that can be used in the selected microbes to implement synthetic routes to product formation using synthetic biology approaches. Our preferred chassis will be selected from a class of bacteria known as 'acetogens'. A number of pathways are already available in biobrick format with the SBRC that can be incorporated into the selected chassis. Feedstock options will include methanol in addition to synthesis gas/ Syngas (CO and H2). The DTP studentship will become fully integrated in this partnership, and have the option of spending 3 months on secondment in China in 2017 at a CAS institute in Shanghai.THE TRAINING: This translational project will be carried out within the BBSRC/EPSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre (SBRC) at Nottingham which comprises 90+ graduate and postdoctoral researchers (www.clostron.com/people.php) and a current budget of £27M. The study will allow for training in a unique multidisciplinary environment, incorporating anaerobic gas fermentation, Synthetic Biology, microbial physiology, metabolic engineering and computer modelling. The student will have the opportunity to travel to, and work in, CHINA, as well as in Sheffield and Oxford.

背景技术背景：工业和社会面临的最大挑战之一是未来从非粮食资源中可持续地生产化学品和燃料，同时减少绿色家用气体（GHG）排放。因此，近年来注意力已经转向生物发酵方法的使用。然而，为了与现有的基于石化衍生原材料的燃料和化学品制造工艺竞争，低成本原料是必不可少的，因为原料通常占总生产成本的>60%。迄今为止，焦点一直是木质纤维素生物质原料的使用。然而，生物质的开发依赖于能量密集的预处理步骤，并且此后，需要添加昂贵的外源性水解酶以将部分解构的生物质转化为发酵过程生物体所需的糖。所涉费用使经济进程的发展极具挑战性。一个令人兴奋的替代方案是使用废气作为原料。气体发酵微生物能够在C1化合物上生长，例如来自非食物来源的一氧化碳/二氧化碳（CO/ CO2）和甲烷（CH 4），将这种低成本的碳转化为现代社会所需的化学品和燃料。幸运的是，C1气体是丰富的废物资源，并且可以是例如来自工业（例如钢铁制造、炼油、煤和天然/页岩气）的废气以及由可持续资源（例如生物质和家庭/农业废物）产生的“合成气”（CO和H2）。这使得在任何工业化地区生产燃料和化学品都不需要消耗宝贵的食物或土地资源。目的：SBRC诺丁汉，连同谢菲尔德和牛津布鲁克斯，已经被授予为期4年的BBSRC-中国合作伙伴奖与中国科学院（CAS）在上海的合成生物学重点实验室。该伙伴关系旨在利用气体发酵生产化学商品。该伙伴关系将通过识别新的微生物底盘或修改现有底盘来实施工艺改进，这些底盘在使用C1化合物作为原料时更有效。战略：我们将探索一些底盘，并组装必要的工具（部件和模块）和策略，可用于选定的微生物中，以使用合成生物学方法实现产品形成的合成路线。我们优选的底盘将选自一类称为“产乙酸菌”的细菌。许多途径已经在生物砖格式与SBRC，可以纳入选定的底盘。除了合成气/合成气（CO和H2）外，原料选项还包括甲醇。DTP学生将完全融入到这一合作伙伴关系中，并可以选择在2017年借调到中国上海的中科院研究所学习3个月。这个翻译项目将在诺丁汉的BBSRC/EPSRC合成生物学研究中心（SBRC）内进行，该中心由90多名研究生和博士后研究人员组成（www.clostron.com/people.php）和2700万英镑的当前预算。该研究将允许在一个独特的多学科环境中进行培训，包括厌氧气体发酵，合成生物学，微生物生理学，代谢工程和计算机建模。学生将有机会到中国、谢菲尔德和牛津工作。