Award details

Enhanced Research Capacity

Reference	BBS/E/J/000PR9794
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor George Lomonossoff
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Professor Sarah O'Connor, Professor Anne Osbourn, Professor Barrie Wilkinson
Institution	John Innes Centre
Department	John Innes Centre Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	3,412,245
Status	Current
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/2017
End date	31/03/2023
Duration	59 months

Abstract

Heterologous expression systems are a key resource for our ISP as a whole. In the previous ISP we developed numerous such systems for generation and study of specific metabolites, proteins and whole pathways, and for pathway engineering. Examples include the production in N. benthamiana leaves of gram quantities of the triterpene ß-amyrin as a substrate for further experiments; investigation in N. benthaminana of proteins that regulate chlorophyll degradation in pea; production of the iridoid alkaloid intermediate strictosidine in yeast and the use of Streptomyces superhosts for expressing biosynthetic gene clusters from intractable bacteria. The need for multiple, flexible systems will increase as more, and more diverse, pathways and products are discovered, characterised and engineered. The N. benthamiana transient expression system has proved of particular value for the production of virus-like particles (VPLs) because of its safety, low cost and speed. Project Leader Lomonossoff has shown that these particles, which lack endogenous nucleic acid, can be used in diagnostics and for production of human and farmed animal vaccines. However, issues including scale, product stability and problems of appropriate expression of multiple genes must be solved in order to optimise the N. benthamiana system for this and other purposes. In this Project we will enhance and optimise our capacity to use heterologous expression systems. The advent of the Leaf Systems® facility (2017) will provide a unique opportunity to produce proteins and metabolites in N. benthamiana on a scale suitable for our research and for investigation of the translational potential of our discoveries. We anticipate that a single batch of plants in this facility will produce up to 10 g of a given protein and 1 g of a natural product. To capitalise on this opportunity we need to improve and refine methods for production of VLPs (Objective 1), and tailor N. benthamiana for specific purposes (Objective 2), for example by removing leaf enzymes that modify metabolites of interest. We also need to increase the capacity and flexibility of other heterologous expression systems, to scale up production of low-abundance proteins and metabolites (Objective 3).

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Not funded via Committee
Research Topics	Industrial Biotechnology, Microbiology, Plant Science
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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