Evolution of UbiX as an efficient alkylphosphate reductase

作为化石燃料的直接替代物的烃的生物生产为与全球石油消费相关的许多问题提供了非常理想的和可持续的解决方案。通过与该领域的主要工业赞助商合作，我们的团队寻求确定体内生产碳氢化合物的新途径。我们使用酶发现，结构生物学，酶表征和蛋白质工程来构建新的途径，将初级代谢产物转化为可持续的构建模块。特别是，该项目将建立在我们最近发现的两种新酶，UbiX和UbiD，一个广泛传播的系统的一部分，涉及微生物降解的芳香族化合物1，2，3。此后，我们发现了更广泛的UbiX和UbiD家族成员，并为选定的UbiX/D突变体建立了不寻常的特性，为我们寻求探索提供了新的途径。研究将主要在MIB（www.mib.ac.uk）进行，为蛋白质生物化学，酶表征，结构生物学和合成生物学提供最先进的基础设施。在工业赞助商工作三个月，将能够分析工业环境中碳氢化合物生产的各种样品。您将能够参与各种学科，重点是酶表征（包括结构生物学/蛋白质晶体学）和进化，以及分析化学，有机化学和建模，提供多学科培训。

Biological production of hydrocarbons as direct replacement for fossil fuel offers a highly desirable and sustainable solution to the many problems associated with the global oil consumption. In collaboration with a key industrial sponsor in this area, our group seeks to define new routes for the in vivo production of hydrocarbons. We use enzyme discovery, structural biology, enzyme characterisation and protein engineering to construct new pathways that convert primary metabolites into sustainable building blocks. In particular, this project will build upon our recent discovery of two novel enzymes, UbiX and UbiD, part of a wide spread system involved in microbial degradation of aromatic compounds1,2,3. We have since uncovered a wider range of UbiX and UbiD family members, and also established unusual properties for selected UbiX/D mutants that provide new avenues we seek to explore. Research will be mainly carried out at the MIB (www.mib.ac.uk), providing state-of-the art infrastructure for protein biochemistry, enzyme characterization, structural biology and synthetic biology. A three-month placement at the industrial sponor will allow analysis of the various samples for hydrocarbon production in an industrial setting. You will be able to engage with various disciplines, with an emphasis on enzyme characterization (including structural biology/protein crystallography) and evolution, in addition to analytical chemistry, organic chemistry and modeling, providing a multidisciplinary training.