R&D : Advancing Enzyme Technology : Discovery

Biodiversity : Discovering Revolutionary Enzyme Products from Nature

Tapping into the Vast Genetic Reservoir Provided by Nature’s Most Abundant Resource: Microbial Organisms

Microbes, such as bacteria and fungi, are the world’s most abundant and varied organisms and can be found in almost every ecosystem, including oceans, deserts, rain forests and arctic regions. Through generations of natural selection in diverse environments, microbes have developed characteristics that are broader and more varied than those encountered in plants or animals. These characteristics, which include the ability to survive in extreme temperature, tolerate high or low pH and high or low salt environments, are the results of the highly diverse genetic material found in the microbial world.

In the quest to discover novel products, Verenium, through bioprospecting, taps into the vast genetic resources of the microbial world by venturing into varied and often hostile ecosystems, such as volcanoes and deep sea hydrothermal vents, to collect the microbial genes that produce enzymes. Because the temperature and pH conditions in which these microbes live often mimic those found in today’s industrial processes, they are a rich source of potential products. Through the use of proprietary technologies, we extract microbial DNA directly from collected samples to avoid the slow and often impossible task of trying to culture individual microbes in a laboratory. With high-throughput screening, we then mine our collection of billions of microbial genes in search of unique enzymes. Once identified, these enzymes can be optimized for targeted application using Verenium’s DirectEvolution^® technology.

Accessing Biodiversity
World Citizenship and Ethical Bioprospecting

As a pioneer in the field of ethical bioprospecting, Verenium has developed the model for benefit sharing and adheres to the Convention on Biological Diversity. Verenium’s goal is that countries, participating institutes and their stakeholders benefit in addition to the bioprospectors themselves. This model secures legal access and provides equitable benefits to all involved. Verenium products are some of the first to generate royalties as a result of bioprospecting collaborations. This approach has facilitated the signing of a number of biodiversity access agreements with research institutions and governments around the world, giving the company broad access to biologically diverse environments around the world.

In order to reduce the impact on sensitive ecosystems, Verenium collects only small samples of soil, water, sediment, leaf litter, or other materials from the environment, often no more than is left on a boot after a hike, to form our microbial gene libraries. A small sample size is all that is necessary to provide abundant genetic samples for our collection which is estimated to contain over 2 million microbial genomes.

High-Throughput Culturing Platform (HTC)

HTC provides access to previously uncultured microorganisms by creating in vitro environments similar to those encountered in natural habitats. The specific technology and an extensive report on its findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Using HTC, novel isolates can be cultured and assayed for biological activities of interests in a high-throughput manner.

Enzyme Screening Technology

Platforms Capable of Screening One Billion Samples Per Day

Verenium’s approach for discovering novel enzymes generates huge collections of microbial genes, called gene libraries. Likewise, Verenium’s laboratory evolution technology, used for the optimization of enzymes and other proteins, also generates large and potentially valuable gene libraries. Verenium has developed an array of automated, ultra high-throughput screening technologies to mine these large libraries for novel biomolecules. These systems are designed to screen for biological activity, known as expression-based screening, and for targeted DNA sequences of interest, known as sequence-based screening. One of Verenium’s key technologies include the the GigaMatrix^® ultra high-throughput screening platform.

GigaMatrix^® Ultra High-Throughput Screening Platform

Verenium’s proprietary GigaMatrix^® ultra high-throughput screening platform is capable of screening one billion clones per day through the use of state-of-the-art robotics and high density sample plates. Typical screening systems utilize disposable 96-, 384-, or 1536-well plates with a standard 3.3” x 5” footprint. GigaMatrix^® plates, with the same footprint, contain up to a million wells per plate, each about the diameter of a human hair, which greatly enhances Verenium’s ability to identify novel enzymes and proteins from large and complex gene libraries. In addition, the GigaMatrix^® plates are reusable and require only miniscule volumes of reagents, making them highly cost-effective.