Application of Synthetic Biology in Biofuel Production

Among the top challenges of this century is access to sources of energy that would be affordable, renewable and environmentally-friendly. In recent decades, efforts to capture the sun’s energy through solar panels or transgenic plants to replace fossil-based fuels have addressed current needs to some extent. However, several challenges such as high production prices have encouraged the bioenergy sector to seek better approaches. A prime approach is through advanced strategies developed by synthetic biology that is helping to move the bioenergy sector to the next generation of bio-based forms of energy. It is now possible to not only improve biofuel production from the traditional sources and producers such as sun and plants, but also generate energy from sources like waste materials from novel producers such as microorganisms.

• How does synthetic biology help the bioenergy sector?

  Synthetic biology is helping with the production of biofuels in two fronts:

  1. Improving existing methods of biofuel production from plants,
  2. Creating new "cell factories" capable of generating energy from traditional and non-traditional forms of feedstock.

  To do so, synthetic biologists:

  • Generate industrial enzymes through engineering biosynthetic pathways to either increase the yield or quality of traditional biofuel-generating pathways, or to generate biofuel from novel, engineered metabolic pathways;
  • Generate industrial microbes through engineering host organisms as "cell factories" in the form of strain improvement of organisms that are innately capable of generating energy, or strain development through importing useful genes to host organisms that can render them capable of using unique feedstocks to generate energy.
• What is the advantage of using synthetic biology to generate biofuel?

  Compared to traditional bioproduction approaches, synthetic biology strategies provide the following advantages to the bioenergy sector:

  • Improving the production process towards higher yield, titer and quality;
  • Enabling the production of novel biofuels that are renewable, less toxic, more accessible, easier to produce and have superior properties;
  • Offering savings in time and money through reducing the cost of feedstock, increasing access to renewable and more affordable sources of feedstock, streamlining and optimizing the production process;
  • Reducing the carbon footprint through adopting environmentally-friendly processes and using natural or waste feedstocks.
• What are prime examples of biofuels generated through synthetic biology?
  • Production of biodiesel from oil feedstock through an industrial phospholipase generated by Pichia pastoris grown on plant oil feedstocks
  • Production of ethanol by engineered thermophilic microorganisms
  • Production of biodiesel from renewable farnesene, a long-chain and branched hydrocarbon molecule, produced by an engineered yeast cultured on sugarcane