Mentor
Alec Vallota-Eastman - Mechanical Engineering
Advisor
Megan Valentine - Mechanical Engineering
Purification of a Biofuel-Producing Protein
Interns
Mateo Gutierrez, Aimee Pereyra, Abraham Soto, Charlie Thrift
Project Description
Microalgae have long been considered a promising platform for the sustainable farming of biofuels, due to their natural ability to produce hydrocarbons. Most biosynthetic pathways for producing hydrocarbons involve multiple steps and are energetically expensive to carry out. Recently, however, a novel photoenzyme was discovered in Chlorella variabilis which produces alkanes from fatty acids in a single reaction step using energy derived from light, known as fatty acid photodecarboxylase (FAP). This discovery has applications in the production of biofuels, although little is currently known about its kinetics and functional range. The goal of this project is to purify FAP from E. coli cells, which have been mutated to express the enzyme, using nickel affinity chromatography and test the enzyme’s activity on a range of fatty acids substrates while learning principles of basic experimental design. This work will help determine FAP’s effective range of activity. Great project for those interested in techniques in molecular biology, microbiology/cell-culturing, chromatography, biofuels, and biotechnology.
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