Team:GreatBay China
mCATNIP！ microbial Compartmentalization AssisTed Nepetalactol Ingredient Production
Nepetalactone is the active ingredient in catnip that attracts cats, an effective mosquito repellent and has a common precursor nepetalactol with other valuable terpenes. Our team aims to biosynthesize nepetalctone through an efficient cross-species (E.coli and yeast) platform to avoid the unstability of plant distillation and the harmful wastes of chemical synthesis, and utilize the product on stray cat control and insects repellence. Yeast would synthesize nepetalactol from the geraniol produced by E.coli through the MVA pathway. To optimize output, we use TALE (transcription activator-like effectors) regulator to stable the promoter function in E.coli. and hiCRISPR to knock out genes diverting the production to sideway in yeast.