Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) and a research team yesterday said that they have developed the world’s first synthetic bacterial strain that can convert methanol into valuable chemicals, signaling new possibilities for recycling carbon.
Team members shared their findings at a news conference at the institution in Taipei, after their paper, titled “Converting Escherichia coli to a Synthetic Methylotroph Growing Solely on Methanol,” was published in the journal Cell on Monday last week.
Some bacteria in nature, namely methanotrophs, can convert methane — a greenhouse gas — into methanol and subsequently utilize methanol as a food source, but current scientific techniques could not easily modify its DNA to produce valuable products, said Frederic Chen (陳育孝), the lead author of the paper.
Photo courtesy of Academia Sinica
Chen said that he just last week finished his doctorate defense with the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was Liao’s student.
While existing industrial techniques can convert methane into methanol, they require large amounts of electricity to produce high pressures and temperatures of up to 500°C only to produce low-value industrial products, he said.
Scientists have been hoping to develop a synthetic methylotroph since the idea was broached more than a decade ago, and the Academia Sinica team is the first to succeed in the effort, Chen added.
The team achieved the result by identifying the key enzymes regulating E. coli through a metabolic prediction model and reprogramming E. coli into a synthetic methylotrophic strain through genome editing tools and artificial evolution, he said.
The technique can convert methanol into valuable chemicals, medicines, and fuels, forming a carbon cycle with high green economic value that can help with carbon reduction, he added.
The new strain only possesses three foreign genes different from ordinary E. coli and can be cultivated at a temperature of 37°C, he added.
The research was conducted by Academia Sinica members, Liao said, adding that electron microscopy, proteomics and three different gene sequencing techniques were keys to characterizing the synthetic strain.
All techniques applicable to ordinary E. coli would also be applicable to the synthetic strain, he said.
The journal’s reviewers hailed the findings as “setting the new standard for synthetic biology,” Chen said.
While they are using methanol as the feedstock and the synthetic bacteria as a biocatalyst, they hope to make the strain able to feed on carbon dioxide and methane in a bid to alleviate greenhouse effects, Chen added.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,