The technologies behind Mycropt.

Our technology platform

Mycropt uses a combination of unique, patented technologies developed by an experienced scientific team to target three major bottlenecks in protein production.

The challenges

• Many proteins have low expression levels, high production costs or fail in production.
• There are no simple and effective solutions that increase yields, improve process economics and enable production of difficult-to-express proteins.
• Three of the major bottlenecks during protein production are expression, folding and fermentation.

We offer

• Increased yield and improved production of your protein without compromising protein folding.
• Customized solutions that are adapted to fit your strain and expression system.
• A unique selection system that enables fast generation of an optimized construct.

ExpressOPT

Expression of proteins is highly dependent on the translation initiation region, which directly influences the efficiency of translation. The translation initiation region contains the Shine-Dalgarno sequence upstream of the start codon, which pairs with the ribosome. There are billions of possible TIR sequences but only a few function optimally. Mycropt uses a proprietary expression technology that combines high quality sequence libraries with smart selection of the best performing clones. The system can be combined with the folding technology, thereby assuring correct folding upon optimization.

The technology has been successfully proven in different prokaryotic organisms, such as Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis and Lactococcus lactis. It can be applied for a range of different proteins and for optimization of biochemical pathways.

FoldOPT

Proteins need to be properly folded to function correctly. Differences in protein expression levels can often be traced to variations in protein folding and stability. Mycropt uses a proprietary biosensor system that makes it possible to simultaneously sense translation level and degree of protein folding inside living cells. This makes it possible to measure both the expression level and degree of protein misfolding during cultivation.

The system is compatible with high throughout florescence-based cell sorting methods and enable quick screening of protein translation efficiency and degree of protein folding. Using high throughput cell sorting methods, the system makes it possible to analyze and sort large mutant libraries to find the optimal version of a given target protein.

BiomassOPT

Production of proteins take place in a fermenter, where microorganisms are grown on nutrients and carbon to express a desired product. Cell accumulation is often very high, leading to low product yields as well as problems with stirring, oxygenation and cooling of the fermenter. These issues can be solved by decoupling growth and production. Growth decoupling prevents excess biomass formation and enables the carbon source to be used for production instead of cell mass accumulation.

Mycropt has developed a proprietary growth decoupling system based on activation of growth switches that inhibit cell division. The system has been shown to improve yield and titer of both proteins and biochemicals that have been optimized using ExpressOPT.