Researchers from the University of Queensland (UQ) and the Technical University of Munich have developed a process to convert cane sugar into a platform chemical for aviation fuel, plastics, rubbers and food additives. The researchers, led by UQ's Professor Gary Schenk, sourced the enzyme dehydratase from Paralcaligenes ureilyticus to speed up the slowest step in processing sugar into isobutanol. "Usually during a biomanufacturing process, cells such as yeasts are used as a production platform, but in our research, only a small number of a sugar acid-specific dehydratase enzyme was used," Professor Schenk said. "Having sugar-converting enzymes operate outside a cellular environment meant we could bypass many of the pitfalls of the more traditional cell-based biomanufacturing methods. "This has led to much higher yields of isobutanol with fewer unwanted side products."
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