Engineering high level triterpene production in plants - 1822
- *Abstract
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Overview
Terpenes are of great commercial value linked to the diverse range ofbioactivities and functionalities associated with different terpenes. Manyvitamins, hormones, insect repellants, drugs, flavors and fragrances are foundamong this very large class of compounds. Although terpene synthases can forma large diversity of terpene compounds, methods for specific terpene isolationremains a challenge. Additionally, methods for efficiently producing oraccumulating specific terpenes through environmentally acceptable process havenot been realized.
Invention
UK researchers are developing the means for producing linear, branched-chainhydrocarbons in high yield in transgenic plants as a potential replacementsource for biofuels and petrochemicals used in diverse industrial manufacturingprocesses. Transforming plant cells withisolated nucleic acid sequences which encode specific enzymes which enhance theproduction of the aforementioned linear and branched tritripenes results inenhanced linear and branched tritripene production as compared with wild-typeplant cells. The enzymes include acombination of a farnesyl diphosphate synthase (FPS) in combination with atritripene synthase. The resulting plantis easy to cultivate and accumulates terpene that provides a higher biomasswith respect to the total weight of the adult plant compared to current methods.
Applications
- biofuels
- petrochemicals
- industrial manufacturing
- pharmaceuticals
- consumer goods (cosmetics, lotions, vitamins, insect repellants, flavors and fragrances, etc.)
Advantages
- high-level production of triterpenes
- ascalable, renewable, and sustainable production platform
IP Status: U.S. Patent Application No. 13/573,709
- Country/Region
- USA
