Researchers have uncovered a novel pathway in bacteria that holds the potential to decarbonize various industries. This breakthrough could significantly decrease the emission of greenhouse gases generated during the production of fuels, drugs, and chemicals. A collaborative research effort betwee
has resulted in the engineering of bacteria that can generate unique carbon-based products. This breakthrough could open up a promising path towards the production of sustainable biochemicals., leverages bacteria to integrate natural enzymatic reactions with a novel reaction known as the “carbene transfer reaction.
Carbenes are highly reactive carbon-based chemicals that can be used in many different types of reactions. For decades, scientists have wanted to use carbene reactions in the manufacturing of fuels and chemicals, and in drug discovery and synthesis. In the new study, the researchers replaced expensive chemical reactants with natural products that can be produced by an engineered strain of the bacteria Streptomyces. Because the bacteria use sugar to produce chemical products through cellular metabolism, “this work enables us to perform the carbene chemistry without toxic solvents or toxic gases typically used in chemical synthesis,” said first author Jing Huang, a Berkeley Lab postdoctoral researcher in the Keasling Lab.
Recruiting bacteria to synthesize chemicals could also play an integral role in reducing carbon emissions, Huang said. According to other Berkeley Lab researchers, close to 50% of greenhouse gas emissions come from the production of chemicals, iron and steel, and cement. Limiting global warming to 1.5 degreesabove pre-industrial levels will require severely cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, says a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
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