Sustainable Sugar Supplies Open New Horizons for Biomanufacturing

Sustainable sugar supply opens new horizons for biomanufacturing

Researchers have succeeded inbiomanufacturingby using chemically prepared sugar for the first time in the world. With the improvement of this technology, one can imagine a future in which the sugar needed for biosynthesis can be obtained at any time, anywhere, and at a high rate. Which means achieving a number of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially the ninth goal: industry, innovation and infrastructure, and the twelfth goal: responsible consumption and production.

In the future, biofabrication using chemically synthesized sugar is expected to be a game changer in biotechnology, including the production of biochemicals, biofuels, and food.As sugar is an essential raw material; Which will ultimately lead to the creation of a new biomanufacturing system.

For those who do not know, biomanufacturing is a type of biotechnology that aims to exploit natural systems to produce important biological materials and compounds that can be sold on a commercial scale. For use in many sectors such as the medical sector.

As for sugar, it does not occur to you that what is meant is only traditional sugar – which we use to sweeten our drinks and food – but rather sugar in chemistry is a term given to a large family of compounds, which are extracted – usually – from some crops, and are used in many industrial applications, such as fuel production and the manufacture of chemical compounds.

A scientific achievement that overcomes the problems of mass sugarBio

Biomanufacturing using sugars derived from biomass such as corn has recently attracted attention as an environmentally friendly technology. However, the quantities that can be supplied from conventional biomass sugars are limited, compared to the huge demand for the production of fuels and various chemical products. Which leads to great concerns about the impact of industrial expansion on food baskets, given that this technology relies on the exploitation of the same agricultural crops that are used in food industries, which is a major problem that needs to be solved.

In a study recently published in the scientific journal ChemBioChem, researchers from Osaka University developed an innovative technology for biomanufacturing, using unnatural sugars chemically manufactured in the laboratory, as the raw material for a solution.The problem we referred to in the previous paragraph.

Using bacteria (Corynebacterium glutamicum, C. glutamicum), the researchers succeeded in producing lactate fermentation, using laboratory-prepared sugar solutions without any assistance from biological sources. This is the first case in the world in which biomanufacturing is carried out using laboratory-made sugar as a raw material.

This major scientific achievement will enable us in the future to provide our needs for raw sugar necessary for the biomanufacturing process, and this without affecting agricultural crops. This means expanding the scope of biomanufacturing without exposing global food baskets to any dangers.

Features of the new artificial sugar

Currently, biomanufacturing relies on the first generation of…Biomass, and by this generation we mean agricultural crops such as corn and sugarcane, a dependence that will inevitably conflict with the growing demand for food, thus threatening global food security, especially in light of the increasing demand for biomanufacturing products, such as fuel and various chemicals.

Moreover, the expansion of sugar production through large-scale agriculture has negative aspects in itself, such as land use, massive consumption of depleting resources such as fresh water, nitrogen and phosphorus, in addition to water pollution and loss of biodiversity. Now, the research group is conducting several experiments on chemically manufactured sugar, which does not depend on agriculture. This is to adapt it to various biomanufacturing applications.

Chemically prepared sugar is distinguished from sugar extracted from cropsAgriculture has many characteristics, the most important of which is the high rate of industrialization. We do not need to plant and wait for months, then transfer agricultural crops to factories to extract sugar. The new chemical method is hundreds of times faster.

Laboratory-prepared sugar – in addition to the above – does not require the consumption of huge amounts of water, like agricultural operations, not to mention the need to exploit vast areas of land, nor the need for nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which are the elements on which crops mainly depend.

Reframing our understanding of biosynthesis

All of the above does not mean that chemically manufactured sugars are free of defects, as these sugars are considered mixtures that contain many chemical compounds that do not exist in nature in the first place. So it wasThere are challenges in using these unnatural sugar solutions in biological processes, such as the presence of factors that prevent the growth of bacteria necessary for the manufacturing process.

To address the above, the research team created a stable production method using chemically synthesized sugar as the main substrate and C. glutamicum as the model bacterium. They also identified growth-inhibiting factors in the prepared sugar solution, and showed that they can be removed by secondary catalytic treatment.

Moreover – and by conducting fermentation processes under oxygen-limited conditions – they succeeded in producing lactate fermentation using a manufactured sugar solution, despite the absence of these compounds in nature, and this is the first case in the world in which biomanufacturing is carried out using laboratory-made sugar, without relying on any source.Natural.

The promising results of this research indicate that chemically synthesized sugar can be used as a new raw material for biomanufacturing, since it can be produced in large quantities, anywhere, and without affectingfood chains; This means completely reformulating our understanding of the biomanufacturing process, which will open the way for expansion of this industry in a sustainable manner, meeting all the needs of the present, and preserving our resources for future generations.