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Engineering Biology in Cambridge

 

Dr Greg Reeves (Hibberd Lab, Dept of Plant Sciences) will present his OpenPlant-funded project on engineering spicy tomatoes and Dr Eugenio Butelli (Martin Lab, John Innes Centre) will discuss his work as scientific director of Persephone Bio Ltd, where he is developing genetically modified tomatoes to function as biofactories for the production of cosmetic and nutraceutical products.

SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY FOR THE PRODUCTION OF NUTRACEUTICAL, COSMETIC AND PSYCHOACTIVE COMPOUNDS IN TOMATO
Dr Eugenio Butelli (Martin Lab, John Innes Centre)

Tomatoes are the most popular fruit in the world with almost every cuisine employing the ingredient in some form. It is a very good source of lycopene and other beneficial nutrients; however, commercial varieties of tomato are considered nutritionally suboptimal because they lack important health-protecting compounds.

We use metabolic engineering to develop nutritionally enhanced tomatoes with very high levels of specific compounds that are completely absent in natural varieties.

Combining GM strategies with targeted genome editing and conventional breeding, we have generated tomato fruit where the new engineered compounds make up as much as 10% of the dry weight. Consequently, we can use tomatoes as efficient bio-factories for large-scale production of different bioactive compounds with a wide range of potential uses, including cosmetic and pharmaceutical applications.

TRANSFERRING CAPSAICIN PATHWAY FROM CHILI PEPPERS TO MAKE SPICY TOMATOES
Dr Greg Reeves (Hibberd Lab, Dept of Plant Sciences)

The chili pepper is the most cultivated spice crop in the world with an annual value over $20B (USD). As well as it’s use in the food industry, it is used in pharmaceuticals as an analgesic in balms to treat chronic arthritis, joint and other pain.

The spicy flavour of chili peppers is due to the accumulation a compound called capsaicin. Despite chili pepper being the only organism that produces capsaicin, the genes needed for capsaicin production are also mostly present in tomatoes. Interestingly, most of these genes even behave similarly in tomato fruit to those in chili peppers-yet they don’t lead to spicy tomatoes!

Only three of the tomato genes are not active in the fruit. Researchers at the University of Cambridge and the John Innes Centre (Norwich) hypothesise that these three genes are the missing components in the ‘tomato capsaicin pathway’.

Using synthetic biology approaches they are aiming to discover whether turning these three genes on in the plant will complete the capsaicin pathway. The results will teach them about the capsaicin pathway and how it evolved in chili peppers. The project may also yield spicy tomatoes which could be used for extraction of capsaicin for industry.

Café Synthetique is the monthly meetup for the Cambridge synthetic biology community with informal talks, discussion and pub snacks. It is kindly sponsored by Cambridge Consultants.

Date: 
Monday, 15 July, 2019 - 18:00 to 20:00
Event location: 
The Panton Arms