![\"From](\"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2026\/03\/72500d3406fc894fdaacc451e2026e35.jpg\")
The Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) announced on the 22nd that a team led by Professor Dong-Hyeok Kim of the Department of Energy and Chemical Engineering has created a methanol-tolerant strain for C1 biorefineries using adaptive laboratory evolution technology and identified its key genetic mutations. The research findings were published in the international academic journal ‘Journal of Biological Engineering<\/em>‘ on December 8th last year (local time).<\/p>\n\n\n\n A C1 biorefinery is a technology that produces materials like plastic feedstocks, traditionally made through petrochemical processes, by feeding microbes C1 compounds, which are molecules containing a single carbon (C) atom. Methanol, an alcohol, is an inexpensive C1 feedstock that is easy to transport and store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For biorefinery technology to be economically viable, the microbial strain must proliferate rapidly even in high-concentration methanol environments. Because methanol is toxic to cells, the growth of typical strains is inhibited when methanol concentrations exceed 1%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The research team secured a highly methanol-tolerant strain through adaptive laboratory evolution, a process of selecting and re-culturing only the microbes that survived in progressively higher methanol concentrations. Starting from 0.5%, the concentration was incrementally increased by 0.25%, with continuous cultivation carried out for about four months over 800 generations. This resulted in an evolved strain with a growth rate up to 1.68 times higher than the wild-type strain in a 2.5% high-concentration methanol environment.<\/p>\n\n\n Genetic analysis revealed that mutations in the metY and kefB genes were common to all tolerant strains. In the high-concentration methanol environment, the metY mutation suppressed the synthesis of methoxine, a toxic byproduct of methanol metabolism, while the kefB mutation contributed to the efficient use of cellular energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Using the information from these genetic mutations, we can design and produce methanol-tolerant strains in large quantities and in a short time using tools like genetic scissors, without having to repeat the adaptive evolution process,” explained Kyumin Lee, a researcher at UNIST and the first author of the study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This will help lower process costs and increase production yields in the manufacturing of bioplastics or organic acids, thereby securing economic viability,” said Professor Kim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A microbial strain has been developed that can produce useful petrochemical raw materials while multiplying 1.68 times faster than its wild-type counterpart, even in a high-concentration methanol environment. The Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) announced on the 22nd that a team led by Professor Dong-Hyeok Kim of the Department of Energy and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":174169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"A UNIST research team secured a highly methanol-tolerant strain through adaptive laboratory evolution, as for biorefinery technology to be economically viable, the microbial strain must proliferate rapidly even in high-concentration methanol environments","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[6843,12584,13718,12615],"supplier":[13125],"class_list":["post-174131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biochemicals","tag-biorefineries","tag-methanol","tag-microbes","supplier-unist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174131"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=174131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2026\/03\/f36cc30b9fc3db014bde16219f0e3178.jpg\")
Gyu Min Lee<\/a>; Khoi Nhat Pham,\u00a0Ina Bang,\u00a0Seyoung Ko &\u00a0Donghyuk Kim; Integrated genomic and transcriptomic Insights into methanol tolerance mechanisms in\u00a0Methylobacterium extorquens<\/em>\u00a0AM1, identifying key targets for strain engineering; strain engineering; Journal of Biological Engineering<\/em><\/a>; – doi.org\/10.1186\/s13036-025-00557-1<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"