SynBio4Flav develops a standardized pipeline for the surrogate production of plant flavonoids using synthetic microbial consortia (SMCs) for systems-guided assembly of such complex natural products. By facilitating component troubleshooting and reusability, instead of optimizing a single whole-cell biocatalyst, SynBio4Flav recreates the non-homogeneous scenario of natural flavonoid production processes. Specifically, it breaks down complex, highly regulated metabolic pathways into stand-alone modules and then assigns each module to a microorganism that is genetically engineered to deliver the optimal output for subsequent biosynthetic steps within the SMC. SynBio4Flav’s groundbreaking approach impacts the whole synthetic biology hierarchy abstraction, i.e. from cell systems to microbial communities, and is expected to replace the more traditional use of single-cell biocatalysts.

Libraries of cell systems engineered to deliver optimal outputs and novel synthetic biology tools for using these cell systems to assemble 3D synthetic microbial consortia are among the envisaged project outputs. On this basis, SynBio4Flav develops a standardized platform containing hundreds of optimal cell systems for exploring the full combinatorial space of flavonoid biosynthesis, including thousands of new-to-nature analogues. SynBio4Flav is thus expected to reach a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5 in the production of natural and new-to-nature glycosylated flavonoids.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 814650.