ATRIEM

Advanced Training in Industrial Enzyme Manufacturing

 Partecipanti

Mappa

 Word cloud

Esplora la "nuvola delle parole (Word Cloud) per avere un'idea di massima del progetto.

 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'One of the main activities in the biotech industry is the manufacturing of enzymes, and access to cheap and diverse enzymes is crucial for the development of a sustainable biobased economy. However, improving the production efficiency of an increasingly large variety of commercial proteins and enzymes poses significant challenges for industrial-scale fermentations. In addition, the European biotech industry is confronted with rising competition from developing countries in Asia. To face these challenges and to remain competitive, it is essential to develop smart technologies and to employ highly trained and adaptable technologists. To ensure that the European biotech industry has access to graduates with the appropriate skills and expertise, it is essential to foster strong collaborations between industry and academia, and this is the objective of this application. Newcastle University (UK) will partner with the Royal DSM N.V. biotech company (The Netherlands) to deliver a European Industrial Doctorate (EID) programme entitled: Advanced Training in Industrial Enzyme Manufacturing (ATRIEM). The PhD students will obtain high-quality training in molecular and cellular microbiology techniques and will gain relevant work and research experience in an industrial environment. The aim is to ensure that the advance technologies learnt in academia are of direct relevance to industry. The PhD research projects will be focussed on two important limitations encountered during industrial enzyme production: differences in the productivity of individual cells in a population (cellular heterogeneity), and bottlenecks in the secretion of heterologous enzymes.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Manufacturing of diverse and inexpensive enzymes is crucial for a sustainable bio-based economy. A European programme is training adaptable technologists for the future biotech industry.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

A strong collaboration between industry and academia focusing on the relevant training of young specialists is essential for Europe's biotech industry. The four-year EU-funded ATRIEM (Advanced training in industrial enzyme manufacturing) project pursues this objective. Newcastle University (United Kingdom) partnered with the Royal DSM N.V. biotech company (the Netherlands) to roll out the European Industrial Doctorate ATRIEM.

The participants are obtaining high-quality relevant training in molecular and cellular microbiology, gaining experience in an industrial environment. PhD students in training are currently addressing two limitations of industrial enzyme production: cellular heterogeneity and bottlenecks in the secretion of heterologous enzymes.

ATRIEM revealed that cellular heterogeneity, or the differences in the productivity of individual cells in a population, is related to stress. By constructing an array of fluorescent promoter-reporter fusions it was possible to investigate how individual cells respond to high induction of a secreted protein. With the promoters acting as stress indicators, results demonstrated the connection between the induced stress and heterogenic response.

Ongoing efforts include construction of a randomised promoter library to find optimal promoters, and investigating the effect of gene location on production efficiency. The project has already revealed significant differences in expression levels based on where the gene of interest is integrated into the genome.

Protein secretion is addressed by fluorescent microscopic studies of Bacillus subtilis. ATRIEM found that the HALO tag is an excellent fluorescent reporter for cell biological studies. The tag can be labelled with different fluorophores and is currently being optimised for pulse-chase labelling to study protein dynamics.

Because enzyme production requires overexpressing proteins, this can overwhelm the secretion apparatus. Increasing the concentration of the secretion components might mitigate this potential bottle neck. The project aims to overproduce the different components and see whether enzyme production can be improved.

In addition to the research training, participants disseminate their results at international conferences. The outreach activities at pre-college level are preparing potential prospects for a career in industry and technology.