Kick-off meeting of SINFONIA, a European project for the microbial production of fluorinated biopolymers

The SinFonia project (Synthetic biology-guided engineering of Pseudomonas putida for biofluorination) was launched on 13th and 14th of February 2019 at Brussels (Belgium) by representatives of the Danish Technical University (DTU, Copenhagen, Denmark), the coordinating site of this new project from the EU Horizon 2020 program. The Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas (CIB) from the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) participates in this project which is granted with a total of € 7.95 million. Work on this project at the CIB will be directed by Dr. Auxiliadora Prieto, Head of the Polymer Biotechnology Group at the Department of Microbial and Plant Biotechnology. The SINFONIA project is a collaboration between 7 academic and 6 industrial partners from 12 countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Germany (2)).

Organic compounds containing F (fluorochemicals) are extremely relevant from an industrial point of view. Fluoropolymers are the main fluorochemicals in the market worldwide and are exclusively synthesized using chemical methods. Moreover, current fluorination technologies usually involve corrosive and toxic reagents that have a negative impact on the environment. Designing sustainable bioprocesses based on alternative and safer fluorinating agents from renewable substrates is thus a long sought after, yet unfulfilled goal.

SinFonia proposes to engineer the metabolically-versatile bacterium Pseudomonas putida to execute biofluorinations for generating novel fluoropolymers from renewable substrates. SinFonia will exploit natural selection to enhance bioproduction through a smart strain engineering approach in which bacterial growth will be coupled to biofluorination. Our target compounds are a whole family of fluorinated polyesters with enhanced physicochemical and material properties, with applications in self-cleaning surfaces, low-surface-energy coatings, bio-based lubricants, membranes for fuel cells, and anti-fouling materials.