Reducing CO2 emissions during chemical production through the Synthetic Biology of complex microbial communities

通过复杂微生物群落的合成生物学减少化学生产过程中的二氧化碳排放

• 批准号: 2275599
• 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: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2275599
• 关键词: Reducing; CO2; emissions; during; chemical

One of the greatest challenges facing society is the future sustainable production of chemicals and fuels from non-petrochemical resources while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The use of abundant and renewable lignocellulosic materials, that can be physically pretreated to yield both cellulosic and C5 fractions as feed stocks to make chemicals and fuels can be highly valuable if the process is efficient and minimises CO2 production.This studentship will be linked to a recently funded BBSRC project that is part of the European EraCoBiotech programme between the Universities of Nottingham, Toulouse, Munich and Girona. The aim is to engineer synthetic microbial consortium to produce to a value added product, n-butanol, that can be used both as a platform chemical or a biofuel. Nottingham is responsible for the engineering of Clostridium carboxidivorans, n-butanol producing acetogen. Model acetogens, such as Clostridium autoethanogenum (chassis of the company LanzaTech), only make the C2 products acetate and ethanol. C. carboxidivorans (chassis of Synata Bio) on the other hand, also makes butyrate, butanol and hexanol, more valuable C4 and C6 chemicals. Hexanol, for instance, is a higher carbon alcohol with a higher energy content than ethanol. It has potential for use as an aviation fuel and as a transportation fuel when blended with kerosene and diesel. It is also used in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic perfumes industry, textile industry, in detergents, in pesticides, agent in the leather and as a fishing industry, among others.The global hexanol market size was estimated at over USD 1.1 billion in 2016 and will exhibit growth of more than 4% up to 2024.Until now, gene transfer into this C. carboxidivorans had never been demonstrated, precluding effective metabolic engineering strategies. Scientists at the BBSRC/EPSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre (SBRC) at Nottingham have now overcome this impediment. In this project you will, therefore, work with our European partners in the optimisation of the key steps required for effective genome editing in C. carboxidivorans, including CRISPR/Cas9, CRISPRi, TARGET-AID and transposon-based TraDIS technology. Once in place you will use these developments to enhance hexanol production using CRISPR technologies to eliminate competing reactions (such as those leading to acetate, butyrate and lactate) as well as optimising expression of native genes. Mutants affected in competing pathways will be subjected to phenotypic characterisation and omics analyses (at the University of Toulouse), and results used to improve an SBRC Genome Scale Model. The final strain may be incorporated into the envisaged synthetic community to make hexanol.The student will become fully integrated into the European project, attending the six monthly project meetings to be held in rotation at the 4 Universities, in Germany (Munich), France (Toulouse) and Spain (Girona). Time limited secondments to partner Universities may also be possible.Ultimately, the developments made will lead to new, sustainable industrial processes that could make a real contribution to reducing CO2 emissions.

社会面临的最大挑战之一是未来从非石化资源中可持续生产化学品和燃料，同时减少温室气体排放。使用丰富的可再生木质纤维素材料，这些材料可以经过物理预处理，产生纤维素和C5馏分，作为制造化学品和燃料的原料，如果该过程有效并最大限度地减少二氧化碳的产生，则具有很高的价值。该奖学金将与最近资助的BBSRC项目相关联，该项目是诺丁汉大学、图卢兹大学、慕尼黑大学和赫罗纳大学之间的欧洲EraCoBiotech项目的一部分。目的是设计合成微生物联合体，以生产一种增值产品，正丁醇，既可以用作平台化学品，也可以用作生物燃料。诺丁汉大学负责碳梭菌（Clostridium carboxidivorans）的工程设计，它能生产正丁醇。模型醋酸菌，如自乙醇梭菌（LanzaTech公司的底盘），只能使C2产品醋酸和乙醇。另一方面，C. carboxidivorans （Synata Bio的底盘）也能制造丁酸盐、丁醇和己醇，这是更有价值的C4和C6化学品。例如，己醇是一种比乙醇具有更高能量含量的高碳醇。它有可能用作航空燃料，也有可能与煤油和柴油混合后用作运输燃料。它还用于制药和化妆品香水工业，纺织工业，洗涤剂，杀虫剂，皮革剂和渔业等行业。2016年全球己醇市场规模估计超过11亿美元，到2024年将增长4%以上。到目前为止，这种C. carboxidivorans的基因转移从未被证实，这妨碍了有效的代谢工程策略。诺丁汉BBSRC/EPSRC合成生物学研究中心（SBRC）的科学家们现在已经克服了这个障碍。因此，在这个项目中，您将与我们的欧洲合作伙伴一起优化C. carboxidivorans有效基因组编辑所需的关键步骤，包括CRISPR/Cas9， CRISPRi， TARGET-AID和基于转座子的TraDIS技术。一旦到位，你将利用这些发展来提高己醇生产使用CRISPR技术消除竞争反应（如那些导致乙酸，丁酸和乳酸），以及优化原生基因的表达。受竞争途径影响的突变体将进行表型表征和组学分析（图卢兹大学），结果用于改进SBRC基因组规模模型。最终菌株可并入所设想的合成菌群中以制造己醇。该学生将完全融入欧洲项目，参加在德国（慕尼黑）、法国（图卢兹）和西班牙（赫罗纳）四所大学轮流举行的六个月项目会议。也可能有时间限制地借调到合作大学。最终，所取得的进展将导致新的、可持续的工业流程，从而为减少二氧化碳排放做出真正的贡献。