The European Commission in Brussels is supporting a European research project for the development of novel enzymes for the optimised use of plant, bacterial, and human hydrocolloids based on complex sugar molecules in the food sciences and for technical and medical applications. During the coming four years, the EU will provide six million Euro for the project involving 15 participants: universities, research centres, multinationals and small biotech companies from Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Bulgaria. The co-ordinator of the project named „PolyModE - POLYsaccharide MODifying Enzymes" aiming at the deciphering of the molecular language of complex sugar polymers is Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher from the Department of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the University of Münster in Germany. Polymeric sugars - so-called polysaccharides - are by far the most abundant biomolecules; they include such ordinary substances as starch made from potato or maize, and cellulose in cotton. As renewable resources, they are, thus, of high priority to man in many areas, from food sciences to textiles and medical products. Apart from simple sugar polymers like starch and cellulose which are basically long chains consisting of a single type of sugar, there are also highly complex sugar polymers made up of many different types of sugar, such as pectin used for gelifying jams. Such complex sugars are highly important additives in the food industries where they are thickening sauces, giving texture to cheeses and ice cream, or increase the viscosity of ketchup still allowing it to flow out of the bottle when shaken. (c) Danisco These sugars which are also termed hydrocolloids are typically obtained from plants and algae. Pectin, e.g., is mostly extracted from citrus peel, alginate from brown algae, and carrageenan and agar from red algae. Some hydrocolloids are also produced by bacteria, such as xanthan, or by fungi, such as chitosan; some are animal derived products such as gelatine (which, however, is not a sugar but a protein) from bones, hyaluronan from cartilage or heparin from mucosa. In many cases, however, those hydrocolloids with the best properties are produced only from some very specific organisms and are, thus, available only in limited quantities. As an example, three quarters of the annually produced ca. 50.000 tons of carrageenan are extracted from only two species of red algae, and these have begun to become rare due to over-utilisation and global climate change. The researchers of the PolyModE project, therefore, want to isolate the enzymes - i.e. the tools used by these red algae to produce their superior quality carrageenan - and optimise them using state-of-the-art molecular genetic methods. These enzymes should then be suitable to be used in a biotechnological process to convert the inferior quality carrageenan from other, widespread red algal species into a superior quality product. A different goal of the PolyModE project will be the optimisation of pectin modifying enzymes. Today, pectin is extracted commercially mostly from citrus peel. Recently, however, the rising prices for energy and the development of a novel technique to burn orange peel have prompted the orange juice producing companies to use their orange peel for the generation of energy needed for juice production, rather than selling them to the pectin producing companies. This is why e.g. the PolyModE partner Danisco, one of the largest producers of food ingredients world wide, is now in search of alternative pectin raw material sources. The PolyModE project will, therefore, search for novel enzymes that can modify low quality plant material to provide highly functional pectin. Thus, PolyModE will create an enlarged platform for future functional developments in these and other hydrocolloids for food, health, and nutritional as well as technical applications. Concomitantly, the PolyModE researchers are trying to understand the subtle molecular differences between the different sugar polymers from different organisms. In fact, complex sugar polymers have a lot more in store. Sugars are masters of diversity. They can build an enormous diversity of different structures, and information is contained in these structures. Cells recognise each other by the sugar structures on their surfaces, our immune system often recognises pathogens by their typical sugars, and the different blood groups as well as rejection of transplanted organs are based on different sugar structures. The language of sugars, however, is a lot more complex than the language of genes or proteins and so far, we can hardly read it, much less understand it. While genes make use of only four ‚letters' and proteins use twenty, where these letters are nicely arranged in a continuous sequence, there are more than twenty letters in the alphabet of sugars, and these can firstly be modified by different types of ‚accents', they can secondly be linked in different ways, and they can thirdly even be arranged in branched patterns. This is what makes ‚reading' (chemical analysis) of the information present in complex sugars so incredibly demanding. And even if using state-of-the-art mass spectrometry may allow us to read the information, we are still far from understanding it. Today, we only know very few of the ‚words' of the language of sugars, such as one that inhibits coagulation of human blood and one that alerts plants to the presence of pathogenic fungi. But if we want to use this language e.g. for medical purposes, we will not only have to be able to read and understand it, we will also need to learn writing it. Thus, researchers of the PolyModE partner Sanofi-Aventis have, in a demanding chemical process, synthesised the small but highly complex five-letter sugar which inhibits blood coagulation, producing a therapeutic agent for e.g. thrombosis or dialysis patients that is almost free of side effects. Chemical synthesis of this heparin fragment, however, is extremely difficult, time consuming, and expensive, its synthesis in fact requires more than fifty steps. This is why the PolyModE researchers want to investigate and use the cells' own writing and reading tools. In cells, both processes are performed by enzymes. It is these polysaccharide modifying enzymes which are in the focus of the PolyModE project. These, the researchers want to find, to produce them in large quantities and in high purity using molecular genetic methods, to study their properties, and to optimise the conditions for their use in the synthesis or modification of complex sugar structures in cell free systems. To this end, biologists and chemists, microbiologists and biochemists, molecular geneticists and biotechnologists from three European universities - Münster in Germany, Wageningen in the Netherlands, and Uppsala in Sweden - and three research centres - INRA Jouy-en-Josas close to Paris, CNRS Roscoff in Brittany, and BAS Sofia in Bulgaria - have teamed up with the two multinationals Danisco and Sanofi-Aventis, with a chitosan producer (Gillet Chitosan from Nancy) as well as with half a dozen young biotech companies in the PolyModE project. The biotech companies involved were selected based on their proven record of driving the development of modern biotechnologies in areas such as metagenomics and directed gene evolution (LibraGen from Toulouse and Geneart from Regensburg), or novel expression and fermentation systems (Artes from Langenfeld and GTP from Toulouse). The scientific team is complemented by professional management and consultancy teams (LIP from Lyon and CSC from Senden). Together, these partners possess a very broad spectrum of expertise and experience in the development and use of state-of-the-art methodology in sugar biology and chemistry, perfectly complementing each other and allowing the direct transfer of results from the lab to the industry scale. At the same time, the project offers ideal opportunities for young scientists to perform excellent basic research with a tangible potential for application, in a stimulating, interdisciplinary and international context. The research of the PolyMode project will then not only open up new resources for known hydrocolloids, but it may also generate novel complex sugars with further improved properties. "If we understand how e.g. human cells produce certain types of heparin, or why they react with a stimulation of the immune system when confronted with certain types of chitosan, then we might be able to use optimised enzymes for the generation of designer polysaccharides that specifically support wound healing or suppress blood coagulation" says Prof. Moerschbacher. He is convinced: "Such specifically acting, complex sugar polymers which are produced in a completely biological process, will have an enormous potential in many fields. They are well compatible with the human body, and they are easily degraded in the environment." This will be music to the ears of aficionados of the trendy molecular gastronomy, as many of the magic tricks of the molecular chefs rely on the detailed knowledge and skilful use of complex sugar hydrocolloids. Three stars can be earned by those alone who understand the language of sugars.
Moerschbacher, Bruno | Molecular Phytopathology and Renewable Resources (AG Prof. Moerschbacher) |
Moerschbacher, Bruno | Molecular Phytopathology and Renewable Resources (AG Prof. Moerschbacher) |