Award details

A pipeline for the discovery, sustainable production and commercial utilisation of known and novel highvalue triterpenes with new or superior biological activities

Reference	BBS/E/J/000CA533
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Anne Osbourn
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Professor George Lomonossoff
Institution	John Innes Centre
Department	John Innes Centre Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	193,589
Status	Current
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/10/2013
End date	30/09/2017
Duration	47 months

Abstract

Mankind is continually screening low-molecular-weight compounds from a plethora of synthetic and natural sources in the search for molecules with novel or superior pharmaceutical or biological activities. Various bioprospecting, synthetic and biotech strategies to produce and diversify natural products are being exploited to provide new pipelines for bioactive molecules, e.g. for use as drugs or agrochemicals. Plants are a potential rich source of such molecules. However, because of their extreme diversity and complex chemistry, plant metabolism is still under-explored. Consequently, the full potential of plant-derived, low-molecular weight, bioactive compounds is still largely untapped. The TriForC consortium will tackle this issue by establishing an integrative and innovative pipeline for the exploitation of plant triterpenes, one of the largest classes of plant bioactive compounds with an astonishing array of structural diversity and spectrum of biological activities. The consortium will deploy state-of-the-art technologies, developed by the partners, to achieve its aims: • Identify new bioactive triterpenes for commercial development as exemplified for pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. • Elucidate Structure-Activity-Relationships (SAR) of triterpenes through biological activity screenings. • Constitute a genetic toolbox that will allow mimicking ‘rainforest’-like structural triterpene diversity in the laboratory. • Develop a metabolic engineering platform for rational design of triterpenes for production in bioreactors. • Develop and upscale plant-based bioreactors for sustainable commercial production and biorefining of high-value triterpenes. The focus of the Osbourn lab in this project is on characterisation of novel triterpene synthases and associated biosynthetic enzymes from oat (Avena strigosa) and sea cucumber.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Not funded via Committee
Research Topics	Crop Science, Industrial Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals, Plant Science, Structural Biology, Synthetic Biology
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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