Engineered Yeast Lysis to Intensify Intracellular Product Recovery
Organizations: Manus and University of Texas at Austin
Researchers from members Manus Bio and The University of Texas at Austin are collaborating to improve intracellular product recovery from yeast systems by engineering programmed lysis of the cell wall. This will simplify the downstream process, reduce or eliminate dangerous solvents, and reduce the mechanical energy required for product separation and recovery.
This research will enhance biomanufacturers’ ability to commercialize many bioproducts that accumulate intracellularly, such as lipids, vitamins, pigments, proteins, biosurfactants, and polysaccharides. In addition to improving bioproduct separation, disrupted cell walls will increase the nutritional value of yeast biomass for animal feed and aquaculture applications, allowing biomanufacturers to capture premium value from yeast co-product.
Yeasts are robust cellular factories. Their cell walls impart osmotic, pH, and shear stress resistance, but also increase the cost of intracellular product recovery. Current processes often resort to solvents, chemicals, or extensive mechanical processing to recover products, limiting biomanufacturing growth opportunities. The solutions developed through this research will be trialed and refined in Manus’s pilot facility in Georgia.
Project dates: 2024 – present
Funding source: BioMADE Project Call 4.0
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