title: Use of sustainable chemistry to produce an acyl amino acid surfactant.
abstract: Surfactants find wide commercial use as foaming agents, emulsifiers, and dispersants. Currently, surfactants are produced from petroleum, or from seed oils such as palm or coconut oil. Due to concerns with CO(2) emissions and the need to protect rainforests, there is a growing necessity to manufacture these chemicals using sustainable resources In this report, we describe the engineering of a native nonribosomal peptide synthetase pathway (i.e., surfactin synthetase), to generate a Bacillus strain that synthesizes a highly water-soluble acyl amino acid surfactant, rather than the water insoluble lipopeptide surfactin. This novel product has a lower CMC and higher water solubility than myristoyl glutamate, a commercial surfactant. This surfactant is produced by fermentation of cellulosic carbohydrate as feedstock. This method of surfactant production provides an approach to sustainable manufacturing of new surfactants.
authors.affiliation: Modular Genetics, Inc., 325 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Gabriel O
authors.initials: GO
authors.lastname: Reznik
authors.forename: Prashanth
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vishwanath
authors.forename: Michelle A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Pynn
authors.forename: Joy M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Sitnik
authors.forename: Jeffrey J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Todd
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Brendan G
authors.initials: BG
authors.lastname: Keenan
authors.forename: Andrew B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Castle
authors.forename: Richard F
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Haskell
authors.forename: Temple F
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Ponisseril
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Somasundaran
authors.forename: Kevin A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Jarrell
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001412:Bacillus subtilis / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D002482:Cellulose / Q000378:metabolism; D005285:Fermentation; D018698:Glutamic Acid / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D055666:Lipopeptides / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D008823:Micelles; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010453:Peptide Synthases / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D010456:Peptides, Cyclic / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000737:chemistry; D015202:Protein Engineering; D012995:Solubility; D013501:Surface-Active Agents / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D055666:Lipopeptides; D008823:Micelles; D010456:Peptides, Cyclic; D013501:Surface-Active Agents; C009365:surfactin peptide; D018698:Glutamic Acid; D002482:Cellulose; D010453:Peptide Synthases; C069542:surfactin synthetase