KSEF RDE: Harnessing Starch Using Thermophilic Starch Kinases and Phosphatases

  • Gentry, Matthew (PI)

Grants and Contracts Details

Description

Starch is a key component in many aspects of daily life, including nutrition, biofuel production, and industrial processing: 50-80% of daily caloric intake comes from starch; >20% of corn starch produced in the U.S. is converted to ethanol; and starch is a cheap and renewable industrial feedstock for producing paper, textiles, plastics, and pharmaceuticals. Starch is comprised of intertwined glucose chains that form double helices and make starch both water-insoluble and inaccessible to most enzymes, including amylases that degrade starch. Starch-based feedstocks are generated by modifying starch using physical, chemical and enzymatic methods. Physical modifications include cyclic heating/cooling between 50°C and >100°C. The addition of acids and bases both catalyzes glucose chain hydrolysis and converts insoluble starch to a structure improving the accessibility of glucose chains to amylases. Alternatively, plants utilize an orchestrated reversible phosphorylation system: 1) starch kinases phosphorylate starch to solubilize the starch outer surface, 2) amylases then cleave glucose to release the energy cache, and 3) starch phosphatases dephosphorylate starch to reset the cycle. We discovered starch phosphatases nearly 6 years ago and pioneered the field by determining the x-ray structure of multiple starch phosphatases. We recently discovered a unique kinase-phosphatase system in the thermophilic red alga. We cloned these enzymes, purified them from a recombinant expression system, and performed initial biochemical analyses to validate their activities. The objective of this proposal is to determine the molecular mechanisms of thermophilic glucan kinases and phosphatases with a three-prong approach focused on: 1) defining the enzymology of thermophilic starch kinases and phosphatases. 2) determining the structure of thermophilic starch kinases. 3) utilizing thermophilic enzymes to enhance starch degradation.
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date7/1/146/30/15

Fingerprint

Explore the research topics touched on by this project. These labels are generated based on the underlying awards/grants. Together they form a unique fingerprint.