Biomining the rumen for enzymes with industrial potential

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The aim of this sub-programme is to utilise the vast quantities of sequencing data being produced as part of this and other projects to identify potential industrially interesting enzymes. Prospecting metagenomes for function using sequence (or catalytic domain) based similarity and/or using functional assays on metagenomic libraries allow discovery of microbial function, gene similarity/divergence, as well as allowing potential discovery of new biotechnologically useful enzymes. We will use sequence similarity and functional predictions to identify the sequences of interesting genes from the rumen. This information will be cross-referenced against meta-transcriptomic profiles generated in other projects to rank potential enzymes by their activity in real rumen environments. Finally, SNP variation analysis will be used to identify families of hydrolytic enzymes that show high levels of diversity from metagenomic datasets, and therefore may have undiscovered variants useful for industrial applications. We will work in collaboration with researchers with complimentary expertise in Bangor and within EGB ISPG to identify candidates and expedite exploitation, through site-directed mutatgenesis to test if dected variants of known hydrolytic enzymes are functional and large-scale functional profiling to identify those with the most potential for industrial use.

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