Heterologous Expression

About

Abstract: Researchers at Stanford have developed the HEx system for heterologous expression of biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) in yeast. BGCs are a clustered group of genes that produce a small molecule. Many of these small molecules are useful natural products that have applications in medicine, agriculture and manufacturing. Identification and development of these natural products has been challenging. However, thousands of bacterial and fungal genomes have now been sequenced and these sequences can be computationally “mined” to identify BGCs and possible new natural products (see Stanford Docket S16-404). To study the products from these computationally identified BGCs, the inventors have developed HEx- a heterologous expression system in yeast. The HEx system can be used to produce these previously inaccessible compounds. It provides a suite of tools including new inducible promoters (see Stanford Docket S16-096), yeast strains with improved growth characteristics, and a high-throughput DNA assembly pipeline. The HEx system can be used to produce new natural products for potential use in pharmaceuticals, biofuel and agriculture. Stage of research This technology has been used to express and study natural products identified while mining the fungal genome. Five new compounds have been discovered using this yeast platform. Related technology HEx can be used to express new natural products identified by the TICker algorithm, see Stanford Docket S16-404. If interested in learning more, please respond by March 31, 2017. Applications: Drug discovery Biofuel Agriculture Research Advantages: Enables expression of BGCs that could not be expressed using classical applications Makes more novel natural products accessible Heterologous expression enables easier manipulation and culture Enables discovery of novel structural and biochemical diversity