Team:USTC
Proposed implementation
In this part, we want to illustrate in future how to apply our project to production in real world.
Firstly, we plan to perfect our strain’s manufacture value by giving it the capability of pack drug into LNPs and construct appropriate platform to make the borneol synthesized by yeasts cross-link to LNPs. Also, aiming to guarantee the safety of manufactory, we will introduce a light-inducible suicide gene circuit into our strain. Those are the preparation of our way to produce borneol in large scale.
Then comes the manufactory part. Our strain will grow and synthesize our product in fermentation tanks which has a controllable blue light generator. That is because after a period of time of fermentation, our strain will inevitably age and the production rate will decrease. In order to renew our strain in fermentation tanks and get rid of any pollution at the same time, we will use blue light to activate the suicide gene circuit.
After that, the mixture of dead cell and product will be placed into a centrifuge purification unit to isolate our product. The product will be stored for further detection and identification. Noticeably, the dead yeast will not be simply thrown away but transferred into feed for livestock.
Definitely, our product will go through lots of test, such as the stability of cross-linking and the optical purity to ensure its security. We hope it will be safe and pure enough to help with the treatment.
Our biosynthesis process overmatches traditional chemosynthesis procedure in many ways: on the one hand, as we have mentioned above, it is totally environmental-friendly, since it now turns into a metabolic product so that we can save from complicated reactions and various side reactions. On the other hand, the chiral selection rate of our process is already quite ideal as 95.3% and we plan to push it forward. This will save us a lot of work when utilizing it in medical treatment.
What’s more, by producing all the components we need in only one yeast cell, we can avoid spending money in buying any intermediates or in transportation, thus will make our product cheap and available to anyone in need.
For the low cost of mass production, our Bor-NPs will be affordable to people of all income groups. And we have designed a kit for them to get themselves injected quickly and easily.
When our drugs enter patients’ body, borneol will first assist our drugs go through the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) by augmenting the gap between cells and increasing the permeability of BBB. Additionally, after the lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) reaching the brain, borneol will inhibit the excretion of LNPs. It can bind with permeability glycoprotein (Pgp) and impede the transformation of Pgp, thus will accelerate the accumulation of our drugs and improve their effectiveness in the treatment.
References
[1] Chen, N., Wen, J., Wang, Z. & Wang, J. Multiple regulation and targeting effects of borneol in the neurovascular unit in neurodegenerative diseases. Basic & Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology 130, 5-19, doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/bcpt.13656 (2022).
