These days, the whole bioeconomy is dependent on one valuable resource: sugars. No matter if they are produced from starch or cellulose, they always originate from plants. But while the global demand for carbon sources is growing, the arable land is shrinking and droughts are more frequent.
At iGEM Aachen, we aim to make the bioeconomy independent from plant-derived sugars. We do this by teaching E. coli to use methanol as a carbon source and convert it to glycogen, the bacterial equivalent to starch.
Therefore, we introduce a synthetic pathway, implementing it in vivo for the first time.
For this kind of metabolic engineering research, chemostat cultivation of candidate strains is essential. However, traditional continous cultivations are very costly and not affordable for everyone. To solve this problem, we are developing a do-it-yourself bioreactor with very low culture volume. This bioreactor is accompanied by hardware and software that is cost-effective and user-friendly.
Concering the DIY principle of our modular selfmade bioreactor we established contacts to community labs ...
inspiration from Design Page:
Introduction
Products from the bioeconomy play an important role in a sustainable future, but are dependent on cheap and available biomass as a carbon source. The availbality of sustainable biomass though, is limited by the arable area of our planet. Even by deforestation and setting up new agricultural area, we cannot provide enough arable land for both biomass for the bioindustry and food crops to solve the problem of world hunger. So if we hardly manage to feed the population, how can we guarantee the supply of biomass for other biotechnological products?
Another important aspect to consider is that most of our everyday products are mainly based on fossil resources. The main source for sustainable products today, are plants. However, they are really inefficent in fixing CO2 and need a lot of time, water and space.
The best option would be to use CO2 from the air to form products. Recent technological advancements made it possible to convert CO2 into methanol with an incredible efficieny. This is where our project comes in. To take a step forward in solving this complex problem, we developed our E. coli that converts methanol to glycogen.
Glycogen is a sugar polymer that is safe to handle and can be easily converted into glucose. Therefore it can then be used as a carbon source for almost all existing bioprocessess since those rely on sugar. Our project has the potential to make the bioindustry independent from plants and instead use CO2 from the air. Thereby not only methanol is opened up as a new carbon source but also the CO2 level in the atmosphere is reduced. We connect the bioeconomy with advanced technologies of CO2 fixation.
We decided to use the newly developed, ATP-neutral Methanol Condensation Cycle to enable E.coli to take up methanol. Glycogen accumulation was achieved by knocking out the degradation enzymes and overexpressing the synthesis genes. Therefore we developed a functioanl glgCAB glycogen synthesis operon, which successfully produces glycogen and is our first functional prototype.
Our product adresses the problem in a multifunctional way because not only can the potential of methanol be exploited but also the bioeconomy can get independent of plants and there will be no competition of resources for industry and for bioindustry.
Other potential solutions...