From renewable carbon to a nylon monomer
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Biochemical Engineering
Abstract
The challenge for industrial biotechnology is to be able to make feedstocks for the chemical and polymer industries using renewable or waste feedstocks. We have current programs on the valorisation of waste components of distillers grains (DDGS) and sugar beet. Distillers grains is the material left over after biofuel fermentation and contains cellulose, hemicellulose and xylan. Sugar beet waste contains pectin, cellulose and hemicellulose. We are currently looking at ways of channeling the monomers from DDGS protein and sugar beet pectin into a range of other compounds using metabolic engineering, synthetic pathway design and biocatalysis. A challenging conversion would be to channel large amounts of carbon through metabolic pathways of a microbial chassis to make the nylon precursor 6-aminohexanoic acid. This research is closely aligned to sustainable high-value chemicals manufacturing research in an EPSRC-funded Sustainable Chemistry project, and fits within the EPSRC strategic priority area of Manufacturing the Future
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| John Ward (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Thomas Hickman (Student) |
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EP/N509577/1 | 01/10/2016 | 24/03/2022 | |||
| 1810916 | Studentship | EP/N509577/1 | 01/10/2015 | 26/12/2019 | Thomas Hickman |
| Description | -I have designed and characterised a proof of principle for a 3 module organic acid modification system. Module 1- CoA activation, module 2- CoA ester modification, module 3- CoA termination. I have characterized a number of thioesterases and shown one (RpaL) to have activity towards a broad range of CoA esters, an ideal candidate for the final termination module. I have characterised a CoA ligase (AliA) with a range of organic acids showing it to be a good candidate for CoA activation (module 1). I have also cloned and purified a number of CoA ester utilising enzymes which i have couple with AliA and RpaL to create modified organic acids. -The primary goal of this research was to develop a renewable route to cyclohexanol (and thus a nylon monomer) from central metabolism of a microbe. Caveats to this were a lack of commercially available substrate and no previous chracterisation of required enzymes. In my work i developed a novel route for synthesising the commercially unavailable CoA ester substrates using an organic acid modification system (see above). I cloned and isolated all the enzymes required for this synthetic pathway and characterised 50% of the proposed pathway, despite none of the substrates being commercially available. I sequenced a novel streptomyces genome and identified and isolated a CHC CoA operon essential for the production of certain CHC-moiety containing polyketides. |
| Exploitation Route | Ideally organic acid modification system could be used by others to produced novel industrially-useful organic acids as well as provide a novel route through which to produce currently commercially unavailable CoA esters. |
| Sectors | Chemicals,Environment,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |