Project description
Specialised synthetic chromosome with all of yeast’s genes encoding metabolic enzymes
Biotechnology, as its name implies, uses biological systems to create new products, processes and even organisms for society. Microbes’ vast, complex and highly efficient metabolic pathways offer myriad opportunities for more eco-friendly and sustainable chemical synthesis. Taking advantage of these metabolic pathways can be challenging because the genes controlling them are scattered over the genome. Using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the European Research Council-funded AdLibYeast project will develop a one-stop shop for genes encoding enzymes. Specifically, the team will design and construct a yeast platform with all genes encoding enzymes involved in central carbon metabolism on a specialised synthetic chromosome, enabling a modular approach to central metabolism engineering.
Objective
Replacement of petrochemistry by bio-based processes is key to sustainable development and requires microbes equipped with novel-to-nature capabilities. The efficiency of such engineered microbes strongly depends on their native metabolic networks. However, aeons of evolution have optimized these networks for fitness in nature rather than for industrial performance. As a result, central metabolic networks are complex and encoded by mosaic microbial genomes in which genes, irrespective of their function, are scattered over the genome and chromosomes. This absence of a modular organization tremendously restricts genetic accessibility and presents a major hurdle for fundamental understanding and rational engineering of central metabolism. To conquer this limitation, I introduce the concept of ‘pathway swapping’, which will enable experimenters to remodel the core machinery of microbes at will.
Using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, an industrial biotechnology work horse and model eukaryotic cell, I propose to design and construct a microbial chassis in which all genes encoding enzymes in central carbon metabolism are relocated to a specialized synthetic chromosome, from which they can be easily swapped by any – homologous or heterologous – synthetic pathway. This challenging and innovative project paves the way for a modular approach to engineering of central metabolism.
Beyond providing a ground-breaking enabling technology, the ultimate goal of the pathway swapping technology is to address hitherto unanswered fundamental questions. Access to a sheer endless variety of configurations of central metabolism offers unique, new possibilities to study the fundamental design of metabolic pathways, the constraints that have shaped them and unifying principles for their structure and regulation. Moreover, this technology enables fast, combinatorial optimization studies on central metabolism to optimize its performance in biotechnological purposes.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- engineering and technology industrial biotechnology
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology mycology
- natural sciences biological sciences cell biology cell metabolism
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins enzymes
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics genomes eukaryotic genomes
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2014-CoG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
2628 CN DELFT
Netherlands
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