Can artificial starch synthesis reduce agricultural land exploitation?

Artificial starch synthesis from CO 2 has the potential to reduce agricultural land exploitation, the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and the consumption of freshwater resources. This work provides a blueprint for manufacturing food and other valuable complex products from a greenhouse gas.

Is starch a primary feedstock for BioIndustry?

Get the latest news, commentary, and research, free to your inbox daily. SubscribeNot Now × Back to article Starches, a storage form of carbohydrates, are a major source of calories in the human diet and a primary feedstock for bioindustry. We report a chemical-biochemical hybrid pathway for starch synth...

Can We synthesize starch from CO2 in the lab?

The process to synthesize starch from CO 2 in the lab can be considered a breakthrough because it provides a synthetic industrial alternative to agricultural production. Increasing the activity and stability of the enzymes is probably needed to make it cost-competitive, but the prospects are bright.

Can we produce starch in a factory instead of a farm?

“This suggests that it is possible we can produce starch in a factory rather than on a farm, which should be a way to ensure human food security and reduce carbon dioxide emissions,” says Yanhe Ma, a microbiologist at the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology.

Can artificial starch be used as a food ingredient?

The synthetic starch could find industrial use and as an ingredient in animal or human food. Starches, a form of carbohydrates, are a major source of food calories, and we rely on plants to produce them. But the process is complex and inefficient. Speeding up photosynthesis in plants or artificially making starch have been challenging.

How do we build a hybrid starch synthesis pathway?

To build this hybrid pathway, we first chose formic acid and methanol to serve as the candidate intermediates to bridge possible chemical catalysts and biological enzymes. We exploited formolase (fls) to design and construct the enzymatic part of the starch synthesis pathway from the candidate C1 intermediates (21).