Sustainable Exploitation of Bio-Engineered Microorganisms for the Discovery and Development of Novel Biosurfactants and Siderophores with Industrial Applications

SECRETed project aims to exploit the potential of Systems and Synthetic Biology toolboxes and their application within aquatic biotechnology to develop novel hybrid compounds for the agrochemical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and chemistry sectors. Biosynthetic pathways of marine and extremophilic microorganisms will be reverse engineered to infer the individual roles of their constituent genes, which will be further combined for the production of non-natural biosurfactants and siderophores with tailor-made properties. Biosurfactants are compounds with surface-active nature tendency to adsorb at interfaces, while siderophores have the ability to chelate and transport Fe3+ ions. An iterative procedure following the Design-Build-Test-Learn methodological steps ([Fig. 1]) will be used to produce new microbial strains that support the selected genetic elements and satisfy sustainable industrial processing solutions for the production of biosurfactants and siderophores. The amphiphilic nature of biosurfactants and marine siderophores provides an exciting opportunity to develop methods of biosynthesis that would enable the exchange of their hydrophobic and hydrophilic chemical parts enabling the development of new-to-nature compounds.

Fig. 1 The Design-Build-Test-Learn methodological approach that will be used to produce new microbial strains that satisfy sustainable industrial processing solutions for the production of new biosurfactants and siderophores.

The development of such hybrid molecules would allow the exploration of new-to-nature compounds endowed with the combination of their respective properties, to address new applications. Machine Learning algorithms, inspection of databases, and new experimental and computational-based data will be employed to build a unique microbial amphiphilic compound chemical space to identify the desired genetic mechanisms. Detected genes will be reverse engineered to standardize and modularize associated metabolic elements, with a purpose to broaden their benefits by searching for Industrial-driven formulations based on suitable microbial hosts.

Acknowledgments

Secreted project has received funding from the European Unionʼs Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Grant Agreement No. 101 000 794.

Publication History

Article published online:
12 December 2022