From: Chalmers University of Technology
Published March 9, 2017 09:33 AM
Research break-through: Producing gasoline in yeast cell factories
There have been many attempts to modify this stubborn little enzyme.
But none have succeeded, until now. With new findings from Chalmers the
enzyme FAS has started to produce sustainable chemicals for biofuels.
We are in great need of sustainable and clean alternatives to
oil-derived products. One of the choices at hand is to produce chemicals
and biofuels from sustainable biomass.
To do this, researchers in the group of Professor Jens Nielsen at the
Department of Biology and Biological Engineering is hard at work trying
to design yeast cell factories that can actually produce the chemicals
we need in a sustainable way. The group now had a major break-through,
as they developed a novel method of changing the enzyme FAS, fatty acid
synthase, into producing new products.
– This enzyme normally synthesizes long chain fatty acids, but we have
now modified it into synthesizing medium chain fatty acids and methyl
ketones – chemicals that are components in currently used transportation
fuels, Post-doc Zhiwei Zhu explains.
– In other words: We are able to produce gasoline and jet fuel
alternatives by yeast cell factories, and this has never been done
before.
Read more at Chalmers
University of Technology
Image Caption: This is the structure of the FAS enzyme (left), and
foreign enzymes embedded into the chambers of FAS (right). (Credits:
Zhiwei Zhu)
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