am curious as to know how far can this go.I know that bacteria have been engineered to produce isoprene rubber,spider silk,sugar and vegetable oils(in the case of algea).Could the process be repeated for the following:
1.Silkworm silk
2.Shark/cod liver oil
3.Hydrocarbons
4.Drugs like aspirin
5.Morphine
6.Aromatic organic compounds
7.Petroleum (E. Coli Bacteria Used to Create Gasoline | Nature World News) (Special E. coli bacteria produce diesel on demand -- ScienceDaily)
8.individual petrochemicals
9.Latex
10.Individual drug ingredients
11.Individual maple syrups
12.Fructose
13.Corn Syrup
14.Plant oils like Tea Tree Oil & Primrose Oil
15.Animal fibres such as wool and plant fibres such as flax,linen,cotton etc(i know that the cell walls of algea can produce a textile similar to cotton)
I used to work for a company that made omega 3 oils (DHA and EPA) using micro-algae, as an alternative to fish oils (the fish get them from algae in the first place). They purposefully stayed away from engineering to avoid the whole anti-GMO thing, but it is most definitely possible to engineer organisms to produce all kinds of oils. Most of the research involves putting pieces of the metabolic pathways that produce them into bacteria to see how it works.
I currently work at a company that is involved in projects covering several items on your list so my brief thoughts:
- Yes to the proteins involved (similarly to the spider silk, organization into a filament/fiber has proven very difficult so the silk aspect is a long way out yet).
- Yes, but not well or not simply. Oils as we often know them are cocktails of molecules, GE organisms are best at producing a single molecule.
- Yes, but see above problem- compounded by the fact that bacteria like to eat sugar (C6H12O6) and to make hydrocarbons, one literally throws away the oxygen. As such, economical production will never compete.
- Easy
- Done, published in Science and nature in July and August
- Nature does this. Phenylalanine, Tryptophan, Tyrosine, not to mention the DNA bases are all aromatic. Replication of the chemical industry’s molecules is more difficult, but similar compounds can be made and have been.
- See 3+6. Sure, but not identical to petroleum. This would be a tremendously stupid thing to do. The advantage of biology is selectivity- petroleum is not.
- Yes, many but not all.
- Depends on what you call latex. But yes.
- See 4+5 plus many of the statin drugs are partially synthesized by enzymatic processes and beta-lactam drugs (or at least precursors) are still microbe produced. So too many examples to list already.
- Syrup is a mixture/cocktail. But most importantly it is made by a long boil which creates a lot of complex other molecules in there. So this one is not easy all together but each component would be relatively straightforward. Also see 12
- Technically yes, but No. bacteria eat sugars not create them. One could imagine creating an organism which ate cellulose or glucose and excreted fructose, but I don’t think that is what you meant.
- See 11 & 12. Possible- yes; worthwhile - no; stupid - yes; easy - no (lots of pathways to knockout in the theoretical bacteria)
- Trivially easy. Many companies are working on vanilla, rose, mints, etc.
- No. Programed organized macroscopic production using microbes would be great, but still a long way off.
Trivial = 2 years to commercialization
Easy =3-5 years
Yes = 3-7 years
One major stumbling block to silkworm silk and other such fibers is that they aren’t made of just one component. They have layers. I.e., they are constructed as they are expelled. I don’t see how a bacteria can expel the material as a finished fiber.
It’s the different properties of these layers and how they interact that give the fibers their interesting properties.
The most desirable natural fiber that isn’t produced in large quantities seems to be spider silk.
Cyanobacteria already produce fructose through photosynthesis. No genetic engineering required.