CBE colloquia - The Innovative Discovery of Terpenoids

Natural products are an important source of drug discovery, and traditional strategies for direct isolation, in situ activation of synthetic gene clusters, and heterologous expression of natural products have problems such as low research efficiency, high repetition rate, and high work intensity. In order to break through the aforementioned bottlenecks, our research group has introduced the concept of synthetic biology into the field of natural product discovery, focusing on the synthesis genes (clusters) of terpenoid natural products from microorganisms and plants. Using various methods such as AlphaFold2 structure prediction, he has excavated and screened a large number of new biosynthetic genes (clusters), and established corresponding synthetic gene databases; Constructing efficient microbial chassis such as Brewing yeast, Aspergillus oryzae, and Streptomyces, utilizing near source hosts to enhance the adaptability and yield of synthetic gene (cluster) heterologous expression; Translate the conventional manual experimental process to a high-throughput automated platform to achieve high-throughput reconstruction and combinatorial rearrangement of synthetic genes, attempting to change the current situation of low flux, low yield, high repetition rate, and unclear biosynthetic mechanisms in natural product discovery.