About SPPI-NET
SPPI-NET has the ambition of developing the innovative science required to manipulate plants to produce novel 'synthetic' chemical feed-stocks for industrial applications, and to consider the social and ethical issues arising from such interventions. We define synthetic plant products for industry (SPPIs), as chemicals which do not currently exist in nature, but which would offer improved performance characteristics and more diverse applications than existing natural products when applied for non-food uses. These products will be developed through 're-wiring' plant pathways using new 'circuitry' to introduce non-natural metabolic traits, utilising technologies such as xeno-transgenesis and pathway engineering at the level of biotransformation steps and/or regulatory systems. It is also envisaged that chemical intervention to feed xenobiotics into plants will also be a powerful new tool to derive SPPIs. The chemistries targeted are diverse and include bulk fibres, polysaccharides and oils, speciality fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The objective of SPPI-NET is to combine the differing skills of plant scientists, synthetic chemists and metabolic modellers to develop new paradigms for engineering and regulating synthetic products derived from plant metabolism. The strategic impact of the network will be enhanced by identifying important commercially relevant targets for synthetic plant biology through engagement with industry at the earliest stages of project development. At the same time a series of social science interventions will help ensure that key social and ethical considerations become characterised and integrated into subsequent R&D programmes.
Background
Plants have long been major sources of bulk chemicals for the food and fibre industries as well as supplying specific needs within the fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals markets [1]. Recent increases in oil prices, concerns over climate change and the needs to move to sustainable industrial production have refocused interest in using renewable natural products as future feedstock for industry [2]. Many national and international studies have pointed to major increases in our use of plants for such non-food applications in the chemicals industry [3]. Current attention on the non-food use of plant feed-stocks is particularly focussed on biofuels and biorefining using existing crop products [4]. While innovative bioprocessing and selective plant breeding for novel traits will be able to extend the uses of plants for industrial applications, ultimately the use of renewables is constrained by what is available through natural products chemistry [5]. This restriction in the usage of plant derived chemicals for industrial uses is in contrast to the enormous range of feed-stocks available from synthetic organic chemistry. It may therefore be extremely desirable for a future sustainable chemical industry to be able to use plant-derived renewables which possess desirable characteristics normally only associated with synthetic products. Based on our rapidly expanding knowledge of biological chemistry and the synthetic engineering of simpler prokaryotic biosystems [6,7,8], we propose that it is possible to rationally engineer non-natural 'synthetic' improvements in plant products which radically improve their uses for industrial applications. At the same time, and mindful of the public controversy that surrounded past uses of genetic engineering of plants (chiefly in the form of GM foods), it is prudent to examine in advance the likely social and ethical issues (including risk issues) that are likely to be associated with such developments.
The associated scientific challenges of synthetically engineering plant products are clearly enormous, as are the potential strategic and industrial benefits of such technology. Because of the novelty of this area of plant chemical and material science, there is little in the way of precedence or existing international activity to draw on, with just a few seminal reviews on synthetically derived plant promoters [9] and novel polysaccharide polymers [10] published in the public domain. SPPI-NET is therefore in a formative position to shape this strategically important area of natural products biology on the international stage for the benefit of the UK.
Objectives
The overall objective of SPPI-NET is to provide a forum for social and plant scientists, chemists and metabolic modellers to develop new projects directed at the ethical synthetic engineering of plant metabolism to derive useful products for industrial uses. Specific objectives are to:
- Develop research capacity in plant metabolic synthetic biology.
This will be achieved by community building, through the holding of annual interactive meetings of the network. On a less formalized basis, the exchange of ideas and new project development will also be supported through the use of internet conferencing and the availability of travel funds to support visits between SPPI-NET members for devolved networking. - Develop capacity in the social sciences of plant synthetic biology.
This will be achieved by focused events, in partnership with the scientists, aimed at 'upstream' understandings of social and ethical questions raised by synthetic engineering of plant metabolisms in different domains and how ensuing research programmes could have added resilience. - Develop new interdisciplinary research programmes for funding.
This will be achieved by identifying project areas in the conferences and then developing grant proposals through a combined approach of devolved discussion groups followed by organized sand-pit work-shops. These activities will include developing joint projects with industrial partners. - Interact with other networks in synthetic biology (NSBs).
The concurrent operation of other synthetic biology networks will bring major opportunities to learn new approaches as well as develop new modular tools for engineering metabolism. A forum for this inter-networking activity is a focus for the conference in the second year. - Develop training opportunities in plant synthetic biology.
This will be directed toward researchers within SPPI-NET and will be developed with other NSBs such as 'Standards for the Design and Engineering of Modular Biological Devices'. Through joint activities we will take part in the international iGEM competition. - Generate research tools for the wider plant science community.
A web-based open-access repository of the records of the meetings, case studies and reports will be established for dissemination to non-network members. Throughout, SPPI-Net will also be able to disseminate its activities with the large and well-organized Arabidopsis network GARNet. - Produce a report detailing the potential strategic and commercial opportunities
associated with the adoption of synthetic biology for renewable chemical production in the UK.
This report will be complied at the end of the second year and disseminated to government funding agencies, learned societies and industrial bodies.
[1] Bevan, M.W. & Franssen, M.C.R. (2006) Nat. Biotech., 24, 765.
[2] McLaren, J.S. (2000) J. Chem. Technol. Biotechnol. 75, 927.
[3] Kamm, B. & Kamm, M. (2004) Chem. Biochem. Eng.,18, 1.
[4] [Koutinas, A.A. et al., (2007) Biofuels Bioprod. Bioref., 1, 24.
[5] Wilke, D. (1999) Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol., 52, 135.
[6] Kirschning, A. et al., (2007). Org. Biomol. Chem., 5, 3245.
[7] Pennisi, E. (2005) Science, 310, 769.
[8] Holt, R.A. et al., (2007) Bioessays, 29, 580.
[9] Mijakovic, I. et al., (2005) Curr. Opinion. Biotechnol., 16, 329.
[10] Brown, R.M. (2004) J. Polymer. Sci. 42A, 487.