Growing a circular economy with fungal biotechnology: a white paper

Abstract

Fungi have the ability to transform organic materials into a rich and diverse set of useful products and provide distinct opportunities for tackling the urgent challenges before all humans. Fungal biotechnology can advance the transition from our petroleum-based economy into a bio-based circular economy and has the ability to sustainably produce resilient sources of food, feed, chemicals, fuels, textiles, and materials for construction, automotive and transportation industries, for furniture and beyond. Fungal biotechnology offers solutions for securing, stabilizing and enhancing the food supply for a growing human population, while simultaneously lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Fungal biotechnology has, thus, the potential to make a significant contribution to climate change mitigation and meeting the United Nation's sustainable development goals through the rational improvement of new and established fungal cell factories. The White Paper presented here is the result of the 2nd Think Tank meeting held by the EUROFUNG consortium in Berlin in October 2019. This paper highlights discussions on current opportunities and research challenges in fungal biotechnology and aims to inform scientists, educators, the general public, industrial stakeholders and policymakers about the current fungal biotech revolution.

Fungi are colder than their surroundings

“…Today, they play a central role in balancing Earth's ecology by breaking down decaying biological matter and providing nutrients for new growth. Surviving almost anywhere, fungal organisms can be a source of food, medicines, and a variety of biomaterials [14]. The fungal kingdom also includes species that are mutualists such as mycorrhizal fungi, as well as, species in the form of molds and yeasts that are pathogenic to animal and plant flora, causing severe public health and agricultural problems [15].…”

Aspergillus: A Powerful Protein Production Platform

“…Nonetheless, industrial applications of Aspergilli are not limited to the production of citric acid. Several species have been used as prolific producers of other organic acids (e.g., itaconic), secondary metabolites, and enzymes of biotechnological significance [11]. For example, A. niger produces several enzymes used in food and feed production such as glucoamylases, proteases, and phytases [26].…”

“…An alternative production platform that can support low-cost synthesis of large proteins with complex modifications, but with a lesser degree of hypermannosylation during glycosylation compared to yeast is filamentous fungi. In addition, due to their saprophytic lifestyle, most filamentous fungi have already developed the ability to produce and secrete a vast amount of enzymes in order to break down and feed on organic matter [11]. Strains belonging to the genera Aspergillus, Trichoderma, and Neurospora are in fact widely used for production of recombinant proteins with industrial applications [12][13][14][15].…”

Beyond the biosynthetic gene cluster paradigm: Genome-wide co-expression networks connect clustered and unclustered transcription factors to secondary metabolic pathways

“…Moreover, plant-infecting fungi deploy numerous SMs as virulence factors that facilitate successful infection 7 , ultimately destroying enough food for 10% of the human population per year 8 . Improved understanding of the genetic, molecular, and biochemical aspects of fungal secondary metabolism thus promises to drive novel medical breakthroughs, while also insuring improvements in global food safety and security 9 .…”