The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the translation of innovative platforms for renewable and environmentally-sound production practices for isoprenoid (specifically, triterpenoid) compounds from laboratory/demonstration scale to the marketplace. The target triterpenoids have many potential uses: in vaccines as immunogenic adjuvants, human or animal nutritional supplements, cooking oil stabilizers, high revolution machine lubricants, and as replacements for specialty chemicals currently only available from petrochemical feedstocks. These production platforms include plant-based as well as microbial fermentation supply chains to meet diverse client/customer needs. These new production methods are designed to meet a growing market need for non-animal produced, high-quality squalene and squalene-like compounds.
This I-Corps project relies upon unique Synthetic Biology approaches to engineer the biosynthesis and accumulation of novel chemicals in plants and fermentable fungi. These genetic engineering strategies utilize yeast lines which have specific genome edits to allow the accumulation of high amounts of triterpenes. Similarly, genetically modified plant lines have been developed which accumulate high amounts of these compounds in seeds and other easily harvested and stored tissues. Together, these platforms provide an environmentally sound alternative to the current, unsustainable practices of isolating these compounds from shark livers or slow-growing algae cultures. While most genetically modified plants provide value-added traits (such as insect protection or herbicide resistance), this approach here is to specifically produce high-value chemicals that have been previously limited to natural sources or produced in costly fermentation facilities.
