Investigation of a new recombinant fungal lipase for the production of renewable hydrocarbons

• Grant number: 18/10517-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2018
• End date: August 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Biochemistry - Enzymology
• Principal Investigator: Leticia Maria Zanphorlin
• Grantee: Melque Natã Pereira da Silva
• Host Institution: Centro Nacional de Pesquisa em Energia e Materiais (CNPEM). Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (Brasil). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Due to growing environmental concern and the decline of fossil resources, the production of alternative fuels from renewable sources has fostered research and industrial activities. Several technologies have been exploited to produce renewable fuels, such as biodiesel, bioethanol, biobutanol. Advances in the areas of genetics, biotechnology, process chemistry and engineering are leading to a new manufacturing concept for converting renewable biomass into fuels and high value-added products, the so-called biorefinery. The lipases, hydrolases class enzymes have been studied and tested to be used in the production of biodiesel, since using this biocatalyst, some bottlenecks from chemical route are overcome. More recently, these enzymes have also been highlighted by the fact that they can operate in the aviation fuel production chain (bio-jet fuel and/or bio-kerosene aviation), a complex mixture of hydrocarbons composed of different classes, such as paraffin (C8 -C15), naphthenic and aromatic. The production of this biofuel from biomass has become a hot topic of research in recent years. Despite the rapid technical development in the production of aviation fuels, there are still several shortcomings, such as high cost of raw materials and catalysts, need for high pressure and temperature, low yield and still little technical and economic information of the process. Given this scenario, our research group has focused on the use of specific enzymes for the production of sustainable hydrocarbons from biomass abundant in Brazil and that may also be precursors for the production of bio-jet fuel/diesel. In this sense, in the present project we intend to explore the functional and stability characteristics of a new recombinant lipase previously selected by in silico methodology. For this, the enzyme will be produced heterologously and purified through protocols already established in previous project. The pure enzyme will be investigated as to (I) the hydrolysis ability in different vegetable oils and (II) thermostability in the absence and presence of additives which may play an important role in the structure/function relationship using the circular dichroism technique. Therefore, the results obtained here may open new perspectives for the use of enzymes, especially lipases, also in the process of producing biofuel for aviation.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

RADE, LETICIA L.; DA SILVA, MELQUE N. P.; VIEIRA, PLINIO S.; MILAN, NATALIA; DE SOUZA, CLAUDIA M.; DE MELO, RICARDO R.; KLEIN, BRUNO C.; BONOMI, ANTONIO; DE CASTRO, HEIZIR F.; MURAKAMI, MARIO T.; et al. A Novel Fungal Lipase With Methanol Tolerance and Preference for Macaw Palm Oil. FRONTIERS IN BIOENGINEERING AND BIOTECHNOLOGY, v. 8, MAY 6 2020. (19/08855-1, 16/50403-2, 15/26982-0, 18/04897-9, 18/10517-4)