Sustainable production of natural products and biochemicals from microalgae

在过去十年中，由于环境问题和消费者对可持续和可再生产品的强劲需求，利用可再生资源生产化学品和燃料的数量大幅增加。生物产业已经成熟，用于生化生产的非传统生物正在被越来越多地采用。微藻是一种前景看好的可再生化学品来源。通过设计光合作用有机体的代谢过程，我们可以使用生物系统从二氧化碳和阳光中产生化学物质，并减少化学物质生产对环境的影响。这项工作的最终目标是将一种绿色微藻开发成一个利用阳光和二氧化碳生产生物化学品的平台。微藻在固定二氧化碳方面比陆地植物更有效，并有可能生产生物塑料、生物燃料和其他高价值工业化学品的化学前体，然而，这些技术的商业化目前受到两个挑战的阻碍：缺乏基因改造工具和下游回收过程的高昂成本。最近在几个微藻物种的基因改造方面取得的突破，为该领域在未来几年的重大进展做好了准备。这项研究计划将从开发普通微藻小球藻的基因工程工具开始。这些工具将被用来开发过量生产虾青素的普通隐孢子虫菌株，虾青素是一种用于水产养殖业的强抗氧化剂，可作为食品补充剂食用。这将在以后扩展到使用普通革兰氏菌作为生产其他感兴趣的异戊二烯类化合物的平台，如天然杀虫剂和化疗药物。为了应对创造一种低成本的微藻生物质分离工艺的挑战，Ward博士的团队将开发能够将微藻脂肪直接转化为生物柴油的离子液体(IL)催化剂，并促进微藻碳水化合物和蛋白质的破坏和分离。ILS通常被称为绿色溶剂，因为许多ILS不挥发，使用时不会产生空气污染。我们将开发ILS，它可以直接将微藻产生的脂肪转化为生物柴油，并回收它们积累的大量淀粉。随着对非食用淀粉的需求不断增加，以供应不断增长的生物燃料和热塑性塑料行业，由光合作用生长的微藻生产的淀粉可能会对这些行业发挥越来越重要的作用。这一遗传、代谢和生物过程工程研究项目将培训HQP掌握在不断增长的加拿大生物经济中取得成功所需的跨学科技能，并帮助确立加拿大在生物化学生产方面的世界领先地位。

Over the last decade, the production of chemicals and fuels from renewable resources has increased substantially due to environmental concerns and strong consumer demand for sustainable and renewable products. The bio-based industry has matured and non-traditional organisms for biochemical production are being increasingly adopted. One promising source of renewable chemicals are microalgae. By engineering the metabolic processes of photosynthetic organisms we can use biological systems to create chemicals from CO2 and sunlight and reduce the environmental impact of chemical production. The ultimate goal of this work is to develop a species of green microalgae into a platform for the production of bio-based chemicals from sunlight and CO2. Microalgae are more efficient at fixing CO2 than land plants and have the potential to produce chemical precursors for bioplastics, biofuels, and other high value industrial chemicals, however, the commercialization of these technologies is currently impeded by two challenges: the lack of genetic modification tools and the high cost of the downstream recovery processes. Recent breakthroughs in the genetic modification of several microalgae species has poised this field for major advancements in the coming years. This research program will begin with the development of genetic engineering tools for the microalgae Chlorella vulgaris. These tools will be used to develop strains of C. vulgaris that overproduce astaxanthin, a strong anti-oxidant used in the aquaculture industry and eaten as a food supplement. This will be later extended to use C. vulgaris as a production platform for other isoprenoids of interest like natural pesticides and chemotherapy agents. To address the challenges of creating a low-cost separation process for microalgae biomass, Dr. Ward's group will develop ionic liquid (IL) catalysts capable of the direct conversion of microalgae lipids into biodiesel, and which facilitate the disruption and separation of microalgae carbohydrates and proteins. ILs are often called green solvents because many are not volatile and do not produce air pollution as a result of their use. We will develop ILs that can direct convert lipids produced by microalgae into biodiesel, as well as recovery the large amount of starch they accumulate. With the increasing need for non-edible starch to supply the growing biofuels and thermoplastics industries, starch produced from microalgae grown photosynthetically is likely to play an increasingly important role to these industries. This genetic, metabolic, and bioprocess engineering research program will train HQP in the interdisciplinary skill set needed to be successful in the growing Canadian bioeconomy and help establish Canada as a world leader in bio-based chemical production.