Mould unlocks new route to biofuels

Based at the Manchester Insti­tute of Bio­tech­no­logy (MIB), research­ers have iden­ti­fied the exact mech­an­ism and struc­ture of two key enzymes isol­ated from yeast moulds that togeth­er provide a new, clean­er route to the pro­duc­tion of hydro­car­bons. Pub­lished in Nature, the research offers the pos­sib­il­ity of repla­cing the need for oil in cur­rent indus­tri­al pro­cesses with a green­er and more sus­tain­able nat­ur­al pro­cess. Lead invest­ig­at­or Pro­fess­or Dav­id Leys, explains the import­ance of his work: ​“One of the main chal­lenges our soci­ety faces is the dwind­ling level of oil reserves that we not only depend upon for trans­port fuels, but also plastics, lub­ric­ants, and a wide range of pet­ro­chem­ic­als. Solu­tions that seek to reduce our depend­ency on fossil oil are urgently needed.” He adds: ​“Whilst the dir­ect pro­duc­tion of fuel com­pounds by liv­ing organ­isms is an attract­ive pro­cess, it is cur­rently not one that is well under­stood, and although the poten­tial for large-scale bio­lo­gic­al hydro­car­bon pro­duc­tion exists, in its cur­rent form it would not sup­port indus­tri­al applic­a­tion, let alone provide a val­id altern­at­ive to fossil fuels.” Pro­fess­or Leys and his team invest­ig­ated in detail the mech­an­ism whereby com­mon yeast mould can pro­duce ker­osene-like odours when grown on food con­tain­ing the pre­ser­vat­ive sor­bic acid. They found that these organ­isms use a pre­vi­ously unknown mod­i­fied form of vit­am­in B2 (flav­in) to sup­port the pro­duc­tion of volat­ile hydro­car­bons that caused the ker­osene smell. Their find­ings also revealed the same pro­cess is used to sup­port syn­thes­is of vit­am­in Q10 (ubi­quinone). Using the Dia­mond syn­chro­tron source at Har­well, they were able to provide atom­ic level insights into this bio cata­lyt­ic pro­cess, and reveal it shares sim­il­ar­it­ies with pro­ced­ures com­monly used in chem­ic­al syn­thes­is but pre­vi­ously thought not to occur in nature. Pro­fess­or Dav­id Leys says: ​“Now that we under­stand how yeast and oth­er microbes can pro­duce very mod­est amounts of fuel-like com­pounds through this mod­i­fied vit­am­in B2-depend­ent pro­cess, we are in a much bet­ter pos­i­tion to try to improve the yield and nature of the com­pounds pro­duced.” In this par­tic­u­lar study, pub­lished in the journ­al Nature, research­ers focussed on the pro­duc­tion of alpha-olefins; a high value, indus­tri­ally cru­cial inter­me­di­ate class of hydro­car­bons that are key chem­ic­al inter­me­di­ates in a vari­ety of applic­a­tions, such as flex­ible and rigid pack­aging and pipes, syn­thet­ic lub­ric­ants used in heavy duty motor and gear oils, sur­fact­ants, deter­gents and lub­ric­ant addit­ives. Pro­fess­or Leys con­cludes: ​“This fun­da­ment­al research builds on the MIB’s expert­ise in enzyme sys­tems and provides the basis for the devel­op­ment of new applic­a­tions in bio­fuel and com­mod­ity chem­ic­al pro­duc­tion. The insights from this research offer the pos­sib­il­ity of cir­cum­vent­ing cur­rent indus­tri­al pro­cesses which are reli­ant on scarce nat­ur­al resources.”

Ori­gin­al publications:

Title: ​‘UbiX is a flav­in pren­yl­trans­ferase required for bac­teri­al ubi­quinone bio­syn­thes­is’
Authors: Mark D.White, Karl A. P. Payne, Karl Fish­er, Steph­en A. Mar­shall, Dav­id Park­er, Nich­olas J.W. Rat­tray, Drupad K. Trivedi1, Roy­ston Goo­dacre, Steph­en E. J. Rigby, Nigel S. Scrut­ton, Sam Hay & Dav­id Leys
DOI: 10.1038/nature14559 Title: ​‘New cofactor sup­ports a,b‑unsaturated acid decarboxyla­tion via 1,3‑dipolar cyc­load­di­tion ’
Authors: Karl A. P. Payne, Mark D. White, Karl Fish­er, Basile Khara, Samuel S. Bailey, Dav­id Park­er, Nich­olas J. W. Rat­tray, Drupad K. Trivedi, Roy­ston Goo­dacre, Rebecca Beveridge, Per­dita Bar­ran, Steph­en E. J. Rigby, Nigel S. Scrut­ton, Sam Hay & Dav­id Leys
DOI: 10.1038/nature14560 Source: Manchester University