Crop Synthetic Biology to engineer carbon availability in crops
Research focus
Feeding a growing world population is a 21st century challenge because production of the major food crops must increase 50% in the next 25 years. Current breeding techniques are starting to plateau - achieving already less than 1% yield gain per year – and will likely not meet demand. Therefore, application of new tools is urgent, and synthetic biology and metabolic engineering may offer solutions to today’s agricultural deficits.
Plants have evolved under nutrient-limiting conditions (e.g., nitrogen) but were awash with carbon. The balance between carbon and other nutrients has switched to the opposite in modern cropping systems because fertilization and irrigation cause crops to be carbon limited. The research group “Crop Synthetic biology” explores strategies to increase carbon availability in plants by increasing the carbon fixation rate and cutting respiratory losses.
Synthetic biology is a new tool to redesign (or build new) biological systems. It follows the circular principle of “design – build – test – learn” to engineer a system towards desired functions and allows to learn and benefit from it. The diverse tool set of SynBio includes continuous directed evolution, a powerful approach to evolve enzyme functions in a short timeframe. To engineer plant proteins, we use yeast as a platform organism because the physiological conditions are close to plants and the short generation time allows fast directed evolution.
Currently, we work on the following topics
- Cutting respiration costs of plant proteins
- Engineering alternative carbon fixation
- Redesigning protein protection/repair mechanisms
Team
PI: Dr. Ulschan Bathe
Open positions:
- Lab technician (TVL-E9-100%) to start Dec 1, 2024
Job posting: portal.mytum.de/jobs/sonstige/NewsArticle_20240806_135156
- PhD student (topic: cutting respiration, TVL-E13-65%) to start spring 2025
- PhD student (topic: alternative carbon fixation; TVL-E13-65%) to start spring 2025
- Bachelor and Master students to start early 2025
Funding
Elite Network of Bavaria, Bavarian State Ministry for Science and Art
Publications
Bathe, U., Leong, B. J., Van Gelder, K., Barbier, G.G., Henry, C.S, Amthor, J.S., & Hanson, A.D. (2023) Respiratory energy demands and scope for demand expansion and destruction.
Plant Physiol. 3;191(4): 2093-2103
García-García, J.D., van Gelder, K., Joshi, J., Bathe, U. , Leong, B.J., Bruner, S.D., Liu, C.C., & Hanson, A,D. (2022) Using continuous directed evolution to improve enzymes for plant applications.
Plant Physiol. 188(2): 971-983
Bathe, U., Leong, B.J., McCarty, D.R., Henry, C.S., Abraham, P.E., Wilson, M.A., & Hanson, A.D. (2021) The Moderately (D)efficient Enzyme: Catalysis-Related Damage In Vivo and Its Repair.
Biochemistry 60(47): 3555-3565
Lab website