(387aj) Efficient Biomanufacturing of High Value-Added Omega-3 Unsaturated Fatty Acids from Waste Cooking Oil

Synthetic biology and metabolic engineering: Design and construct efficient microbial cell factories using advanced gene editing tools (such as CRISPR-Cas9) to produce high-value chemicals, biofuels and pharmaceuticals.

Fermentation process optimization and scale-up: Study and optimize fermentation conditions to achieve a smooth transition and scale-up from laboratory scale to industrial production.

Waste resource utilization: Explore innovative biotechnology approaches to convert industrial and agricultural waste (such as waste oil, lignocellulose) into high-value-added products.

Main research results and industrial application value

1. Significantly improve yield and economic benefits: By replacing traditional glucose with waste cooking oil as a carbon source, the biosynthesis titer of EPA was successfully increased by more than 50%. This breakthrough demonstrates the great potential of converting industrial waste into high-value products, which can significantly reduce production costs and improve commercial competitiveness.
2. Innovative strain engineering strategies: To solve key bottlenecks in industrial production such as cytotoxicity, metabolic burden and enzyme efficiency, I have developed and implemented several innovative strategies:
   1. Optimizing cell health: By regulating metabolic pathways, we prevent the reverse conversion of triglycerides (TG) to free fatty acids (FFA), effectively improving cell viability and reducing product leakage.
   2. Dynamic regulation and process optimization: We designed a new dynamic promoter to achieve efficient and controllable expression of key enzymes, while reducing the metabolic burden of cells and maximizing the conversion efficiency from waste oil to EPA.
   3. Improving enzyme catalytic efficiency: Through subcellular localization technology, we relocated key desaturases, optimized the use of reducing power, and further enhanced the synthesis capacity of EPA.
3. Industry-leading position: To our knowledge, this is the first time that direct and efficient microbial conversion of waste cooking oil into high-value omega-3 products has been achieved, with significant increases in yield and conversion rate. This technology has strong industrial application prospects and can be applied to functional foods, health products and pharmaceuticals.