Development of method using synthetic biology to design artificial biosynthetic pathway.

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K14880
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Applied microbiology
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Katsuyama Yohei 東京大学, 大学院農学生命科学研究科(農学部), 准教授 (50646437)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: engineering / biosynthesis

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We constructed screening system to modify the ligand specificity of XylS which is a transcriptional activator which recognize m-toluic acid. Based on this system we carried six round of directed evolution and obtained XylS mutant which recognized p-toulic acid. This mutant has 5 mutations. Further analysis showed that three of them are important for p-toluic acid recognition. Saturated mutagenesis at these three sites resulted in XylS mutant which recognize p-toluic acid more selectively. By improving this screening system, we would like to develop a system to design artifical biosynthetic pathway. We also attempted to construct screening system to engineer stilbene synthase by using FdeR and QdoR. However, these enzymes do not have appropriate property for screening.

Free Research Field

生合成