Safety

When we decide to engineer a biological system able to produce ethylene and methyl-salycilate, we looked at all the existing natural pathways. For ethylene we firstly checked the plants producing pathway.

An unwanted byproduct is produced in the last step of ethylene synthesis: cyanide, an highly toxic compound that inhibits the cychrome C oxydase enzyme. Plants however have a complex detoxyfication mechanism.

We immediately though this detoxification path was too complicate to be insered into a microrganism. This due for example that plants enzymes often have diffent glycosilisation pattern that bacteria can not produce. A wrong glycosilation pattern can affect protein folding and activity. In order to avoid these problems, we quitted this path and focused on a more interesting one. Pseudomonas Syrigae pv., a plant pathogen bacteria, is able to produce ethylene explointing only one enzyme. 2-Oxoglutarate Oxygenase/Decarboxylase enzyme takes 2-Oxoglutarate as substrate and transforms it into ethylene + water + carbon-dioxyde. Goto M. Plant and Cell Physiology (2012) 26, 141-150.