Algal biomass is underexploited and high value products based on algal polysaccharides and oligosaccharides remain rare. Indeed, commercial enzymes essentially originate from terrestrial organisms which degrade plant biomass and thus are inefficient or inactive on algal biomass. In the context of the emergence of blue biotechnologies in France, the BLUE ENZYMES project aims at discovering novel enzymes from marine flavobacteria involved in the bioconversion of algal polysaccharides, using a multidisciplinary strategy combining catabolic and transcriptomic profiling, comparative genomics and reconstruction of metabolic networks.
Collaborators:
- “Marine Glycobiology” group of the Laboratory of Integrative Biology of Marine Models (LBI2M, UMR 8227 CNRS-UPMC)
- “Infection et Immunité des Poissons ” group (IIP), UR892, INRA Jouy en Josas
LABGeM team: D. Vallenet, M. Stam, A. Calteau, C. Médigue, B. Viart
Discovery of novel enzymes for the valorization of algal biomass