SBIR Phase I: Creating Plant Inspired Fragrences Via Fermentation

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是生产低成本和可定制的香味，灵感来自植物提取物。 香水行业使用鲜花和其他植物材料的芳香提取物作为高级时装成品香水的基本组成部分。这些提取物是昂贵的，这是由于合适的植物材料的有限可用性，并且由于提取物太复杂而不能通过混合纯化学品来复制。该项目将通过发酵产生新的香料混合物（“培养香味”）。这些培养的香味将根据专业调香师的严格要求进行定制，提供植物提取物所不存在的一定程度的创造力。这项技术将颠覆性地进入数十亿美元的成品香水市场。除香料外，该技术还将允许开发具有植物提取物有益特性的新的可定制提取物，包括香料，染料和抗氧化活性。SBIR第一阶段项目提出应用先进的合成生物学工具来生产复杂植物提取物的可持续替代品。传统的代谢工程项目专注于单一目标化合物的优化生产;该项目将工程改造微生物菌株，以产生香料行业中使用的高价值植物提取物中的一系列成分。其目标是快速筛选和表征新型植物酶，以与产生关键香味分子的现有菌株结合使用。这些新的酶预计将产生多种香料分子，所得共混物的概况将通过高通量代谢组学与来自植物的那些进行比较。然后可以通过调整生物合成途径来根据调香师的规格定制培养的香气混合物。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to produce low-cost and customizable aromas that are inspired by plant extracts. The fragrance industry uses fragrant extracts from flowers and other plant materials as basic building blocks for haute-couture finished fragrances. These extracts are expensive due to the limited availability of suitable plant materials, and due to the fact that the extracts are too complicated to replicate by mixing pure chemicals. This project will generate novel fragrance blends via fermentation ("cultured aromas"). These cultured aromas will be customized for the exacting requirements of professional perfumers, offering a degree of creativity that does not exist with plant extracts. This technology will present a disruptive entry into the multi-billion dollar market for finished fragrances. Beyond fragrances, this technology will allow the development of new customizable extracts with the beneficial properties of plant extracts, including flavors, dyes, and antioxidant activity.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to apply advanced synthetic biology tools to produce sustainable alternatives to complex plant extracts. Conventional metabolic engineering projects focus on the optimized production of a single target compound; this project instead will engineer microbial strains that produce a range of components found in high-value plant extracts used in the fragrance industry. The goal is to rapidly screen and characterize novel plant enzymes for use in conjunction with existing strains that produce key fragrance molecules. These novel enzymes are expected to produce multiple fragrance molecules and the profile of the resulting blends will be compared to those derived from plants via high throughput metabolomics. The cultured aroma blends can then be customized to a perfumers' specification by tuning the biosynthetic pathways.