The SYNBIOMICS project aimed to advance sustainable bioproduct synthesis by reconstructing and upgrading abundant but underutilized woody biomass—cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin—into higher-value bio-based polymers and materials. It provided opportunities to expand Canada’s role in global bioproduct markets, capitalize on existing infrastructure, and strengthen national expertise in resource management. The project harnessed biocatalysts (enzymes) to tailor the chemical and physical properties of wood polymers for use in renewable materials such as resins, crosslinking reagents, and polymer precursors. Leveraging existing genomics datasets, the team deployed bioinformatics pipelines to prioritize target genes, produced recombinant proteins in industrially relevant hosts, tested enzymes and cascades for their ability to introduce new chemical functionalities into lignocellulosic substrates, assessed the potential of non-lytic proteins to modify cellulose fiber structure, and developed genome-enabled process models to guide biorefinery design and inform techno-economic and life-cycle analyses.

The project curated and tested 1,632 sequences for recombinant production, successfully producing 510 and surpassing targets. Purified enzymes were evaluated for their ability to tailor cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Major outcomes included demonstrating the utility of expansin-related proteins in lignocellulose processing, discovering LPMOs that oxidized cellulose surfaces with high yields, establishing an enzyme cascade for hemicellulose amination, and producing alkaline-tolerant laccases active on kraft lignin. Recognizing that broader use of lignocellulose components affects biorefinery effluent treatment, the team established Local Similarity Analysis as a powerful tool for linking microbial communities with operating data from pulp-mill anaerobic digesters. By project completion, the team generated 36 peer-reviewed publications (18 directly funded by Genome Canada), filed one patent, and founded the start-up Yzymes. Website: http://www.synbiomics.ca/