Commercialization of high-value chemical production in moss
TychoBio offers a sustainable alternative to undue use of arable land and petroleum-based processes. In TychoBio we use a green production platform for high-value plant metabolites and grow it in photo-bioreactors. The production platform is based on synthetic biology and genetic engineering of moss. We can provide a competitive alternative to traditional plant metabolite production and reduce current plant metabolite prices as moss requires minimal and cost-effective growth conditions. The platform will target a particular group of high-value plant substances called diterpenoids, which are very difficult and in some cases impossible to produce chemically or biotechnologically on other platforms such as yeast and E. coli. We choose to focus on diterpenoids as they represent a niche of high-value compounds to which moss' properties appear to be superior for the production of these. Diterpenoids are high-value compounds used in food, cosmetics and the pharmaceutical industry. These compounds provide us with a catalogue of hundreds of putative pipeline candidates with various levels of value and accessibility. We have chosen to debut with a diterpenoid called carnosic acid, a potent antioxidant widely used in the industry.