Engineering polyketide production

Introduction

Polyketides are a complex and diverse group of molecules produced by bacteria, fungi and plants. Industrial interest in these natural products stems from some species’ activities as antibiotics, surfactants or other medicines. IBioIC awarded funding to researchers at the University of Edinburgh to help Ingenza engineer a novel way to produce sustainable surfactants utilising polyketide-producing enzyme complexes that would be adaptable to industry’s needs.

Challenge

Ingenza are specialists in using synthetic and evolutionary biology to produce bio-based chemicals and therapeutic proteins. To better understand the pathways involved in polyketide synthesis, Ingenza teamed up with Dominic Campopiano, David Clarke and Jo Simpson. Jo Simpson’s expertise in mass spectrometry was used to understand how the different biocatalytic conversions involved in a polyketide complex form the targeted chemical output. Jo’s skills were combined with Ingenza’s leading molecular biology methods to study the chemical bottlenecks in the designed pathway.

Solution

The insights into the biocatalytic complex and its mode of action were helpful for the next steps of the project where an improved pathway for polyketide synthesis was designed, constructed and tested by the team.

Improved efficiency

The knowledge gained from this project allows Ingenza to target complete chemical reduction of their starter materials towards the preparation of industrial products. This is essential for Ingenza to achieve their aim of developing sustainable and cost-competitive biotechnology to meet the needs of their customers.

Outcome

A strong collaboration

Ingenza continues to work with the University of Edinburgh on a number of projects aiming to use biological processes to produce chemical and protein commodities. The company secured further funding to further develop this technology through an industrial sponsored BBSRC PhD studentship.

“Our collaborative efforts have laid the foundation to develop efficient, sustainable routes to high value target molecules ”