How we get inspirations?
Our project idea originated from a visit to the 0799 Art District in Pingxiang, Jiangxi, in January 2023. During this visit, we explored the role of art in rural revitalization. The 0799 Art District is a hub for artists from various fields, including university art professors, freelance painters, and photographers.
While touring oil painting studios, we noticed a strong, unpleasant odor caused by certain oil paints and the use of turpentine, a common thinner. As biomedical students, we were concerned about potential health risks.
Figure 1. Artist Baiqiao Zhang explains turpentine to team members
Figure 2. team member asked artist Jue Hu about the use of turpentine in the oil painting class
What we want to solve?
Oil painting pigment thinner is an essential substance in the process of oil painting creation. Turpentine, as a common solvent, will release pungent odor, with local irritation and sensitivity. Painters need to live in an environment containing turpentine for a long time, which will have a certain impact on their health.
Why "Eco-Art"?
"Eco" is "ecology", meaning no harm to the environment, and "Art" indicates that our products are currently mainly used in the field of artistic creation. This project starts with α-pinene, the main component of turpentine, and hopes to eliminate harmful components in turpentine by constructing engineering bacteria that can degrade α-pinene with high efficiency. We hope to apply the experimental results to production, provide new ideas and methods for the development of oil painting pigment thinner, and bring an environmentally friendly creative process for oil painting artists.
Bacterial air purifier
Our system includes two engineered Escherichia coli bacteria that are responsible for oxidizing α-pinene and degrading α-pinene oxides, respectively.
Figure 3. Schematic diagram of engineering bacteria dependent α-pinene degradation system. Both engineering bacteria were constructed with Escherichia coli BL21. (1) The diagram of α-pinene oxidation system is shown on the left. E.coli BL21 is transformed with two plasmids: P450-GlcDH plasmid and GLF plasmid. GLF is glucose facilitator, which can cooperate with glucokinase GlcDH to consume ATP to phosphorylate glucose and transport glucose into bacteria. It can improve glucose utilization efficiency, and provide NADP+ for P450 involved α-pinene oxidation process. Under the action of GLF-GlcDH synergistic system, P450BM-3 QM oxidizes α-pinene to α-pinene oxide. (2) The diagram of α-pinene oxide degradation system is shown on the right. α-pinene oxide produced by oxidation of system (1) enters into E.coli transformed with prα-pol plasmid and is decomposed into isonovaval with α-pinenen oxidizing lyase.
α-pinene oxidation system
In Bacillus gigantium, α-pinene can be oxidized to α-pinene oxide, verbenol and myrtenol in a NADPH-dependent form by P450 monooxygenase with five site mutations, and the main product, α-pinene oxide, will be the reaction substrate in the next degradation process (1). At the same time, the glucose promoter gene (glf) from Zymomonas mobilis takes up unphosphorylated glucose and the NADP-dependent glucose dehydrogenase (glcdh) from Bacillus gigantilis, oxidizing glucose to gluconolactone and providing sufficient NADPH for the oxidation process. This finally increases the efficiency of the oxidation system.
α-pinene oxide degradation system
There have been experiments to isolate α-pinene oxidizing lyase from Pseudomonas Rhodesiae, which can further decompose α-pinene oxides into isonovalal and other substances to achieve α-pinene degradation (2).
References
1.Bell SG, Sowden RJ, Wong LL. Engineering the haem monooxygenase cytochrome P450cam for monoterpene oxidation. Chem Commun. 2001; 7:635–636.
2.Ibbon, G. H., & Pirt, S. J. Degradation of α-pinene by Pseudomonas PX1. FEBS Letters. 1971; 18(1): 103–105.
