Team:Vanderbilt/Project

Introduction

The production of plant essential oils and their derivatives represents an over 9 billion dollar industry when considering just their applications in the food and fragrance industries ¹. A staggering 23 million kilograms of citrus oil alone are produced worldwide each year. Up until only a couple decades ago, the production of these essential oils was done exclusively by chemical extraction from plant material. However, the sudden emergence of synthetic biology a versatile and efficient tool has the potential to transform this immense industry, the products of which nearly everyone will come in contact with on a daily basis.

By harnessing existing biosynthetic pathways and introducing enzymes taken from plants into more maleable model systems, it will be possible to significantly improve on current methods of the active components of essential oils, most notably the terpenoids. While most plants express terpenes in the range of parts per million and thus require very large scale operations to be commercially viable, early forays into the biological production of terpenes have proven that it is possible to improve yields 100-fold ². The first aspect of our project involves using the great potential of synthetic biology to design a commercially-viable strategy for the production of any class of terpenoid.

Just as important to the economic benefit of this approach is its environment benefit. With chemical terpene extraction being such a relatively inefficient process, it is necessary to process large amounts of plant material to get a substantive yield. This may not pose as significant of an issue for citrus growers, but many of the most prized compounds are taken from the rarest species of plant.

Cadenine Main essential oil: Cade oil Applications: Antifungal, bactericidal, and antioxidant Results: Genomic DNA with gene successfully extracted from Gossypium hirsutum. cDNA failed to be PCR amplified.	Carene Main essential oils: Rosemary and Cedar oil Applications: Insecticide, anti-inflammatory, and central nervous system depressant Results: Genomic DNA with gene successfully extracted from Picea abies. cDNA failed to be PCR amplified.	Humelene Main essential oils: Hops oil Applications: Culinary spice, and anti-inflamitory Results: Genomic DNA with gene successfully extracted from Zingiber zerumbet. mRNA successfully reverse transcribed into cDNA. Extracted gene failed to be integrated into E. coli.
Myrcene Main essential oils: Thyme and Hops oil Applications: Fragrance, analgesic, and anti-inflamitory Results: Genomic DNA with gene successfully extracted from Perilla frutescens. cDNA failed to be PCR amplified.	(R)-Linalool Main essential oils: Lavender oil Applications: Fragrance, and insecticide Results: Genomic DNA with gene successfully extracted from Mentha citrata. cDNA failed to be PCR amplified.	(S)-Linalool Main essential oils: Citrus and Coriander oil Applications: Fragrance, and insecticide Results: Genomic DNA with gene successfully extracted from Arabidopsis thaliana. cDNA failed to be PCR amplified.
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Project Goals

Results and Directions

Salvia officinalis, growing in the Vanderbilt greenhouse