Project description
Yeast mutant study to revolutionise metabolic engineering
Metabolic engineering holds great promise for enabling the industrial-scale production of crucial and valuable substances. However, current microbial metabolic engineering platforms primarily direct consumed nutrients toward population growth rather than chemical output, reducing overall efficiency and production. The EU-funded QuiescentFactory project addresses this challenge by studying a promising mutation of fission yeast and developing it into a novel metabolic engineering chassis and platform. This mutant grows at 26 °C but enters quiescence at 36 °C while retaining metabolic activity, allowing for the optimisation of metabolite production and overcoming current limitations.
Objective
The proposed project aims to solve a major challenge in metabolic engineering. In microbial metabolic engineering platforms, consumed nutrients are primarily invested into population growth instead of the production of chemicals of interest. Our team is studying a temperature-sensitive mutant of fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe), which grows normally at 26°C, but enters quiescence at 36°C, while at the same time maintaining its metabolic activity. Such an engineering platform could represent the holy grail of the metabolic engineering field - a chassis strain that can stop growing but keeps producing metabolites. Application of such pseudo-quiescent strain would be useful to both industrial and academic players. To develop this mutant into a new metabolic engineering chassis, I will first design a molecular cloning toolkit to perform metabolic engineering in S. pombe, which will enable construction and expression of complex biosynthetic pathways. Second, I will characterize the phenotype of the pseudoquiescent S. pombe mutant using a multi-omics approach. I will generate knowledge about mRNA, protein, metabolite and flux dynamics to delineate a genome-scale metabolic model of the chassis under pseudo-quiescence. Then, I will assess the ability of the S. pombe mutant to overproduce 3 different high-value compounds (kavain via phenylalanine, theophylline via purine and artemisinin precursor via mevalonate). Finally, I intend to reproduce the pseudo-quiescent mutant phenotype in other commonly used yeast species (Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Yarrowia lipolytica). In the short term, this research will deliver a new type of a metabolic engineering chassis for the production of complex chemicals to the metabolic engineering community. In the long term, it will contribute to the development of metabolic engineering as a competitive alternative of total synthesis of chemicals, leading to greener and renewable chemical industry.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
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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HORIZON.4.1 - Widening participation and spreading excellence
MAIN PROGRAMME
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HORIZON.4.1.5 - Fostering brain circulation of researchers and excellence initiatives
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Topic(s)
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.
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.
Funding Scheme
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.
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.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-TALENTS-04
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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.
166 10 PRAHA 6
Czechia
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.