Evolution of UbiX as an efficient alkylphosphate reductase

生物生产碳氢化合物作为化石燃料的直接替代品，为解决与全球石油消费有关的许多问题提供了非常可取和可持续的解决办法。与该领域的一家主要工业赞助商合作，我们的小组寻求为体内生产碳氢化合物定义新的路线。我们使用酶发现、结构生物学、酶特性和蛋白质工程来构建新的途径，将初级代谢物转化为可持续的构建块。特别是，这个项目将建立在我们最近发现的两种新型酶UbiX和UbiD的基础上，UbiX和UbiD是参与芳香化合物1，2，3微生物降解的广泛系统的一部分。自那以后，我们发现了更广泛的UbiX和UbiD家族成员，并为选定的UbiX/D突变体建立了不同寻常的性质，为我们提供了新的探索途径。研究将主要在MIB(www.mib.ac.uk)进行，为蛋白质生物化学、酶特性、结构生物学和合成生物学提供最先进的基础设施。在工业气田放置三个月将允许对工业环境中碳氢化合物生产的各种样品进行分析。除了分析化学、有机化学和建模外，你还将能够接触到各种学科，重点是酶特性(包括结构生物学/蛋白质结晶学)和进化，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.