Biomimic · Synthetic nicotinamide cofactors for new and improved biocatalytic processes
FP7 — People (Marie Curie Actions)
- Duration
- 2013-05-01 → 2015-04-30
- EU contribution
- €175,975
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MC-IEF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Synthetic nicotinamide cofactors for new and improved biocatalytic processes
BIOMIMIC was a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship funded under the European Union through the Seventh Framework People Programme (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF). The overall objective was to enhance the use of cofactor-dependent enzymes for wider use in white biotechnology, thus impacting the European research area. The BIOMIMIC research project was carried out by Dr. Caroline E. Paul with Dr. Frank Hollmann at the Department of Biotechnology at Delft University of Technology. BIOMIMIC had a major impact in the biocatalysis community in academia as well as in industry. Major positive feedback from publications and conference presentations led to various productive and successful collaborations with other international research groups. Additional, the company Enzymicals AG has commercialised one of the cofactor analogues produced, making the results of this project commercially available for wider use. A Wikipedia webpage was created to inform the public about nicotinamide cofactor analogues and a link to the current publications. Moreover, the magazine International Innovations, disseminating science, research and technology, featured the profile of the research investigators and the importance of the BIOMIMIC research project. BIOMIMIC, by supporting the career development of the postdoctoral fellow, has enhanced her individual competence diversification in terms of skill acquisition at a multidisciplinary level. BIOMIMIC resulted in many accomplishments, among which a prestigious poster award at the international conference BIOTRANS 2013; an informative Wikipedia page; national and international collaborations were established and led to fruitful publications; a partnership with the company Enzymicals AG led to the commercialisation of one mNADH analogue, 1-benzyl-1,4-dihydronicotinamide (BNAH). The researcher’s skills were developed through cutting edge research at TU Delft with close national, international and industrial collaborations. As a result of BIOMIMIC, the mNADHs synthetic analogues have been sent around the world to research group and were widely recognised both in academia and industry as better alternatives to natural cofactors. The contribution of BIOMIMIC to white biotechnology will enhance the use of enzymes for the sustainability of the industrial European Area. The high level of peer-reviewed publications in high impact factor journals in addition to the many oral and poster presentations at internationally recognised conferences in the field shows the success of BIOMIMIC.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Over the past years, intensive research has been done in pursuit of the development of nicotinamide cofactor recycling systems in oxidoreductase-catalysed reactions, to reduce the overall cost of biocatalytic systems. However, there is still a need to overcome the challenging drawbacks, such as undesired side-reactions, of using these cofactor-dependent enzymes.The aim of this project is to design and develop synthetic nicotinamide cofactors (mNADs) to be accepted by oxidoreductase enzymes and thus improve biocatalytic processes. The main objectives are (i) an in-depth understanding of the catalytic mechanism of mNAD-driven regeneration with enoate reductases, (ii) expanding the scope of mNADs to other enzymes through protein engineering, and (iii) a preparative exploitation of the optimised system.Thus, the initial part of this project will be the synthesis of novel mNADs, obtaining a library to be used with enoate reductases to analyse the enzyme mechanism with these biomimics. Further on, variants of an alcohol dehydrogenase will be engineered to expand the scope of the mNADs to other enzymes. Finally, the system will be optimised for preparative scale through a newly designed mNAD recycling system. An enzyme screening kit is also envisaged to be developed.The objective of this innovative and timely proposal is to provide training in the multidisciplinary fields of organic chemistry, biocatalysis, molecular biology and protein engineering. This proposal is expected to help the applicant reach a position of professional maturity and start an independent career in academia. Benefits for the European Research Area include a new line of research, and the obtained results will be patented and published in high quality journals, with applications to the industrial sector.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT DELFT · DelftCoordinatorNetherlands
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union