Platform Cell Factory for the production of lipopolypeptides for the cosmetic industry using synthetic biology

目前，脂多肽被广泛应用于各种生物技术领域。其生产的主要瓶颈是产量低、生产成本高。目前的方法包括在混合细菌培养中选择超级生产者。一旦分离出来，它们就被用来生产所需的脂多肽，对这个过程几乎没有控制。最终结果通常是含有相同脂多肽的几个同工异构体的产物，这些异构体的氨基酸序列或疏水脂尾部的碳原子数可能不同。以前解决这些问题的努力主要集中在优化工艺参数上，包括进料、温度和时间。随着合成生物学的兴起，我们现在有工具可以改善自然宿主的代谢途径或在异源宿主中设计完整的途径。Hexis实验室已经确定了几种小分子、多肽和脂质作为皮肤病产品的有力候选，它们具有良好的皮肤保护作用、强抗氧化特性和其他药理功能。该项目将探索利用合成生物学来改善脂多肽的生产。

Currently lipopolypeptides are being used in variety of biotechnology applications. The major bottlenecks in their production are the low yield and high cost of production. Current methods include selection of hyper producers in mixed bacterial cultures. Once isolated they are used to produce the required lipopolypeptides with very little control over the process. The end result is usually a product which contains several isoforms of the same lipopolypeptide which may differ in the amino acid sequence or the number of carbon atoms in the hydrophobic lipid tail. Previous efforts to resolve such issues have been focussed on optimising the process parameters including feed, temperature and time. With the rise of synthetic biology, we now have tools at our disposal to improve metabolic pathways in natural hosts or engineer complete pathways in heterologous hosts. Hexis Lab has identified several small molecules, peptides and lipids as strong candidates for dermatology products with promising skin protective effects, strong antioxidant properties among other pharmacological functions. This project will explore the use of synthetic biology to improve the production of lipopolypeptides.