The Feed Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences released on October 30 that China realized the synthesis of carbon monoxide to protein for the first time in the world, and has formed an industrial production capacity of 10,000 tons, and obtained the first new product certificate for feed and feed additives. Today, I will talk to you about this research and the difference with synthetic starch.
01, about this topic
The topic is misleading, and everyone should look at the "doorway" while watching the "hilarity".
1, [For the first time] the realization of carbon monoxide to protein This propaganda is not appropriate.
From carbon monoxide to protein, it is the characteristic of the strain used in the Institute, which was isolated from rabbit feces by ABRINI J in 1994 and is characterized by the fact that carbon monoxide can be used as a substrate.
2, The advantage of this study is to improve the synthesis efficiency of the strain
The news said
It broke through the core key technology of Clostridium ethanol protein, greatly improved the reaction speed (22 seconds synthesis), and created a world record of 85% of the highest one-step biosynthetic protein yield under industrial conditions.
Specific means may be mutagenesis, genetic engineering and other methods (after all, José M has already deciphered its genome in 2013).
3, many people may be compared with carbon dioxide synthetic starch, but in fact, this can be said to be a completely different two contents, synthetic starch is difficult n orders of magnitude.
Carbon monoxide synthesizes proteins – fermentation
Carbon dioxide synthesis starch - organic synthesis.
02, What is fermentation?
In fact, when it comes to the process from inorganic compounds to organic compounds, people who study chemistry think of chemical synthesis, while people who study biology think of biosynthesis.
Biosynthesis is one of the most extensive reactions in nature, especially plants and microorganisms are widespread, such as the most familiar photosynthesis, which is to use plants or microbial cells to fix carbon dioxide and water to form organic matter.
And fermentation is naturally a major process of biosynthesis, but many times, people are easy to limit fermentation to the field of "decomposition, degradation", such as our daily wine, soy sauce are fermentation products, even our steamed buns are fermented, it can be said that the fermentation field is a major category under the biology discipline, including the famous Moutai academician, also do fermentation, the field is "liquor brewing process".
In fact, the overall definition of fermentation should be:
The process of preparing microbial bodies themselves, or direct metabolites or secondary metabolites, by means of the life activities of microorganisms under aerobic or anaerobic conditions.
03, Biosynthetic proteins
The synthesis of proteins from nitric oxide mentioned this time is a fermentation process, essentially biosynthesis. The researchers used Clostridium ethanol.
We happen to have an article they published, as follows, an article published in the Journal of Animal Nutrition
The unit of the article is the Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Pulang Biological Company mentioned in the news, and there is also Dr. Xue Min interviewed in the news.
Judging from the patent of researcher Xue Min
She is mainly engaged in research in the field of feed related fields, which is also related to the synthesis of proteins reported in this report, because protein is an important component of feed and a major factor in measuring feed quality. In the article, it is a good way to reveal the content of this news report:
From this we can conclude:
1, Clostridium ethanogenum itself is a fermenting bacterium (Clostridium autoethanogenum), ABRINI J found in 1994, which is the strain in the paper that year (Archives of Microbiology, Impact Factor 2.3, Chinese Academy of Sciences Area 4)
2, Clostridium ethanol itself can use carbon monoxide (CO) as a raw material for liquid fermentation.
This was reported in 1994 when ABRINI J discovered the strain, with the title clearly stating:
an anaerobic bacterium that produces ethanol from carbon monoxide
An anaerobic bacteria that can produce ethanol from carbon monoxide.
ABRINI J tested its substrates and found that carbon monoxide, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, etc. could be used.
When carbon monoxide is used as a substrate, the efficiency of its synthetic products
3, the application value of this ingredient lies in: the acquisition of high-protein biological feed raw material Clostridium ethanol protein.
From this, we can conclude that the study of journalism is not about creating new strains, but about modifying strains, em, which is a basic operation in bioengineering.
04, What did the research group do?
We can only look at this from the news.
1, carried out bacterial modification
After years of joint research, the Feed Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Beijing Shoulang Biotechnology Co., Ltd. have broken through the core key technology of Clostridium ethanol protein, greatly improved the reaction speed (22 seconds synthesis), and created a world record of 85% of the highest one-step biosynthetic protein yield under industrial conditions.
From this news, we can see that they should be transforming this engineered fungus to improve the synthesis efficiency, of course, the specific transformation process, must be a patent.
2, describes the concept of bioengineering
The study takes industrial exhaust gas and ammonia containing carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide as the main raw materials, and manufactures a new type of feed protein resource Clostridium ethanol protein "out of nothing", converts inorganic nitrogen and carbon into organic nitrogen and carbon, and realizes independent innovation from 0 to 1, with completely independent intellectual property rights.
The first half of this passage does not need to be seen, biological engineering is described in this way, you can even describe any biological process, such as farting for people is a "out of nothing" process, because you inhale oxygen, and finally the body metabolized carbon dioxide.
The second half can be seen, that is, there are intellectual property rights. In that article, the author also introduced the same content as the news: producing 10,000 tons of ethanol can obtain 1500 tons of bacterial protein.
05, the difference with synthetic starch
It's easy to compare this with synthetic starch. However, I personally believe that there is a difference between the two.
The biggest advantage of synthetic starch is that it is separated from the existence of cells and directly catalyzed by organic methods, which is also a major breakthrough in organic synthesis in recent years, so related research was published in Science.
Conversely, if you use biological means to do it, it is not so attractive, a world-known photosynthesis can meet your needs, single-celled organisms can also photosynthesis, ah, there is no need for any organic synthesis, to the point light and water with carbon dioxide is satisfied.
Similarly, the synthesis of ammonia is very difficult and requires specialized factory equipment, but there are plants in nature that use nitrogen, such as rhizobia.
Anyway, except for individual elements (such as carbon), it is really rare to hear of a certain compound organism that cannot be metabolized.
This time it is a fermentation technology, through a strain of improvement, improve its synthetic protein efficiency, still belongs to the traditional biological engineering.
How to judge, I believe that smart you must be able to see.
[1] Wei Hongcheng, Yu Huanhuan, Chen Xiaoming, Chao Wei, Zou Fangqi, Chen Pei, Zheng Yinhua, Wu Xiufeng, Liang Xufang, Xue Min. Effects of Clostridium ethanol protein instead of soybean meal on growth performance, plasma biochemical indexes, liver, pancreas and intestinal histopathology of grass carp[J].Acta Zootrophistry,2018,30(10):4190-4201.
[2] ABＲINI J，NAVEAU H，NYNS E J，et al，Clostridium autoethanogenum，sp． nov．，an anaerobic bacterium that produces ethanol from carbon monoxide［J］． Archives of Microbiology，1994，161( 4) : 345－351．
[3] Bruno-Barcena, J. M.; Chinn, M. S.; Grunden, A. M. (2013)." Genome Sequence of the Autotrophic Acetogen Clostridium autoethanogenum JA1-1 Strain DSM 10061, a Producer of Ethanol from Carbon Monoxide". Genome Announcements.1(4): e00628-13–e00628-13.