{"id":32907,"date":"2016-02-29T07:26:01","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T06:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=32907"},"modified":"2016-02-26T13:43:03","modified_gmt":"2016-02-26T12:43:03","slug":"usu-biological-engineer-patents-method-to-make-natural-blue-dye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/usu-biological-engineer-patents-method-to-make-natural-blue-dye\/","title":{"rendered":"USU Biological Engineer Patents Method to Make Natural Blue Dye"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feb. 22, 2016 \u2013 A Utah State University researcher has taken a big step toward making a safer, more natural dye that can be used in the food, textile, cosmetic and other industries.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr. Jixun Zhan, an associate professor of biological engineering at USU, has secured a\u00a0patent for an innovative method to produce the deep blue dye known as indigoidine. The tint was originally synthesized from a bacterial strain found in Rhode Island and offered a promising alternative to the synthetic dyes used to color jeans, leather, food and paper.<\/p>\n

\"Indigodine_Zhan-web\"The bacterium itself, however, does not produce significant quantities of indigoidine, so Zhan proposed mimicking the organism\u2019s biosynthetic machinery inside a heterologous host cell: E. coli<\/em>. These mostly harmless bacteria can churn out significantly higher yields of the blue pigment and provide an efficient way to produce the dye without using synthetic compounds that could pose a threat to human health and the environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the original producing strain, there is only one copy of the biosynthetic gene that synthesizes the pigment,\u201d said Zhan. \u201cBut in E. coli.<\/em> we can make multiple copies of the gene and induce its expression under a stronger promoter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhan\u2019s patent also includes the development of a new method to further process and purify the pigment before it\u2019s ready for use \u2013 an important step when using the colorant in food and drinks. Business experts say the patent presents an exciting opportunity across several industries.<\/p>\n

\"Indigodine_dish\"“The demand for natural dyes is growing rapidly,\u201d said Christian Iverson, business development director for USU. \u201cI\u2019ve had a number of conversations with food and consumer product companies that are looking for natural dyes to replace some or all the synthetic chemical-based dyes currently in use \u2013 in particular blue.”<\/p>\n

The invention is just the latest advancement Zhan and his team have made in the growing field of combinatorial biosynthesis. In other studies, Zhan is using bacteria as a heterologous host to produce natural, health-promoting compounds that are normally found in plants. In fact, it was his work on bioactive natural products that led Zhan to the indigoidine bacterium.<\/p>\n

\"Indigodine_team-web\"\u201cWe were interested in the biosynthesis of a compound called herboxidiene by this particular bacterium,\u201d he said. \u201cHerboxidiene is an anti-cholesterol compound that we have been working on with support from the American Heart Association. We sequenced the genome of this bacterium, and while we identified all the genes that are involved in herboxidiene biosynthesis, we also found a pathway that can synthesize indigoidine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhan says he\u2019s confident manufacturers will see the added value of his natural dye process. He says today\u2019s consumers are increasingly aware of the synthetic ingredients found in everyday products and are looking for natural substitutes wherever possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feb. 22, 2016 \u2013 A Utah State University researcher has taken a big step toward making a safer, more natural dye that can be used in the food, textile, cosmetic and other industries. Dr. Jixun Zhan, an associate professor of biological engineering at USU, has secured a\u00a0patent for an innovative method to produce the deep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[6843],"supplier":[8026],"class_list":["post-32907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biochemicals","supplier-utah-state-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32907","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=32907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32907"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=32907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}