ProteoY is advancing the development of Y-FERT, a yeast based bioproduction platform designed to manufacture proteins with potential applications in sustainable agriculture.
The project is being developed together with NeoBioSys within the European I3-4-BIOFERTILIZERS programme. It combines ProteoY's expertise in yeast engineering and recombinant protein production with NeoBioSys' expertise in bioprocess development, fermentation and industrial scale up.
The objective of Y-FERT is to establish a complete pathway from an engineered yeast strain to a reproducible and scalable production process for proteins that could contribute to plant nutrition and soil biological functions.
From engineered yeast to functional proteins
ProteoY's technology is based on proprietary engineered yeast strains capable of producing recombinant proteins.
Within Y-FERT, several proteins have been selected because of their potential relevance for agricultural applications.
The current strains include proteins associated with functions such as improving phosphate availability, supporting biofilm formation and promoting interactions between microorganisms and plant roots.
Rather than relying on a single biological mechanism, the project explores several protein candidates in parallel. This approach allows the consortium to compare their production performance and biological activity before selecting the most promising solutions for further development.
Four proprietary yeast clones successfully transferred
During the first phase of Y-FERT, four proprietary ProteoY clones were transferred to NeoBioSys for bioprocess development.
A strain banking campaign was successfully completed and the different strains demonstrated their ability to grow in the selected chemically defined cultivation medium.
The use of a defined medium is an important step toward industrialisation. It provides better control over culture conditions and supports the development of a more reproducible production process.
The project team also performed nutritional screening to better understand the requirements of the strains and identified specific amino acids that play an important role in achieving optimal growth.
Successful transfer of the induction process
Another major objective was to demonstrate that ProteoY's protein production protocol could be transferred to another laboratory and reproduced under different operating conditions.
The induction protocol developed by ProteoY was therefore implemented at NeoBioSys using the PY12 control strain.
The strain showed satisfactory growth under the transferred conditions and the induction process was successfully reproduced.
Flow cytometry analysis showed a significant increase in GFP fluorescence after induction, providing a clear experimental confirmation that the expression system was activated under the new laboratory conditions.
This represents an important step for Y-FERT because reproducibility and technology transfer are essential before moving toward larger fermentation volumes and industrial production.
Moving toward scalable bioproduction
The next stage of the project will move beyond strain validation and focus increasingly on process performance.
ProteoY will work on quantifying recombinant protein production, evaluating the activity of the proteins and comparing the different production strains.
In parallel, NeoBioSys and ProteoY will continue optimisation of the fermentation process, including cultivation parameters and downstream processing.
The objective is to progressively establish a robust, reproducible and scalable production process that can later support larger scale manufacturing.
Further work will also address the scale up concept and automation of the production workflow.
A platform approach to agricultural biotechnology
Y-FERT goes beyond the development of a single protein.
The longer term objective is to establish a flexible bioproduction platform capable of generating different proteins depending on the targeted agricultural function.
By combining yeast engineering, fermentation, process optimisation and eventually automation, ProteoY aims to create a technology platform that can shorten the path between identification of a biological function and production of a usable protein based solution.
The first months of Y-FERT have demonstrated the successful transfer and banking of multiple engineered strains, growth in chemically defined conditions and reproducible activation of the ProteoY expression system.
The next challenge is now to translate these results into measurable protein yields, biological activity and scalable production.
Y-FERT is coordinated by ProteoY in collaboration with NeoBioSys and supported through the I3-4-BIOFERTILIZERS programme, co-funded by the European Union.