Engineering Acidophilic Yeasts for Sustainable Chemical Production

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Achieving Canada's ambitious goal of net zero emissions by 2050 requires all sectors of the economy to develop innovative pathways to eliminate greenhouse gases (GHGs). Production of chemicals & fuels is energy and emissions intensive, and uses petrochemical feedstocks. Hence, there is a strong need to develop alternative processes for the manufacturing of chemicals. Bioprocesses operate at lower temperature and pressures and have high selectivity and can use environmentally friendly renewable feedstocks. However, the productivities and concentrations of biochemicals (titre) are typically dilute and require further rounds of optimization to enhance the productivity and titres of chemicals.Recently, there has been significant interest in using CO2 as a feedstock for chemicals production. The areas of direct capture of CO2 from air and the subsequent electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 using renewable electricity has attracted significant research attention. The rates of biological CO2 fixation are slower relative to electrocatalytic reduction of CO2. Hence, an intriguing alternative is the development of hybrid electrocatalytic and biochemical processes to convert CO2 into value added chemicals. Electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to formate, methanol has demonstrated at high current densities, energy efficiency and selectivity. Therefore, formate and methanol are promising intermediates for a hybrid electrocatalytic and biochemical processes. Our group has pioneered the development of a novel biochemical pathway to produce the nylon precursor, adipic acid. A key bottleneck in the commercialization of such a bionylon process is the lower yield of adipic acid on cellulosic sugars such as glucose and xylose.Here, we aim to develop novel acid tolerant yeasts that can co-utilize electrocatalytically derived formate and methanol along with glucose to obtain adipic acid at higher yields, thereby enabling their commercial viability.