La transformation d'alcènes par oxydation peut conduire à des familles de composés à plus haute valeur ajoutée utilisés comme intermédiaires de synthèse dans les domaines de l'industrie chimique, pharmaceutique, cosmétique et de la parfumerie. L'objectif de ce projet est de développer un procédé intégré économiquement et écologiquement viable pour la production industrielle d'acides mono et di-carboxyliques via l'oxydation de dérivés d'huiles végétales. La méthode de synthèse proposée repose sur deux étapes consécutives mettant en œuvre la formation de diols correspondants, aujourd'hui bien maîtrisée par OLEON à l'échelle pilote, suivit de La préparation d'acides carboxyliques en milieu oxydant et en présence d'un catalyseur supporté. L'originalité et la force du procédé proposé résident dans la réalisation de cette transformation faite en présence d'oxygène et d'un catalyseur supporté. Une compréhension fine du mécanisme a été nécessaire pour nous permettre d'une part d'atteindre des rendements élevés en produits désirés et d'autre part de lever les difficultés inhérentes à la montée en échelle. L'analyse des intermédiaires réactionnels ainsi que l'élaboration de méthodologies innovantes d'accès à ces intermédiaires ont été considérées. L'objectif final de ce projet est la mise en place d'un procédé intégré dédié à la transformation de dérivés d'huile végétale en produits chimiques valorisables / Oxidation reactions are widely practiced in the Chemical Industry and products obtained through this method represent a huge market. The transformation of alkenes through oxidation processes leads to the production of a large panel of compounds that are used as such or as intermediates in the preparation of organic chemicals, perfumes, cosmetics or pharmaceutical products. The aim of this project is to develop an economically and environmentally viable integrated process for the industrial production of mono and di-carboxylic acids of high purity from the oxidative cleavage of vegetable oils. The synthetic process, dealing with the cleavage of unsaturated fatty acids, involves two distinct successive steps. The formation of the corresponding diols, a well mastered transformation at pilot scale recently patented by OLEON, then the production of mono and dicarboxylic acids in oxidative conditions, which is the key challenging step The originality and the strength of the proposed process are to perform this second transformation with oxygen as oxidant and in the presence of a supported catalyst. Nevertheless, a full understanding of the mechanism is required in order to reach high yields and selectivity in one hand and to facilitate the scale-up stage in an other hand. The analysis and new synthesis methodology of this intermediates was considered. The final objective of this project is to set up an integrated process from the initial chosen feedstock down to the valuable chemicals

The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a major chemical production platform in the biotechnological industry. It is also increasingly being used as a whole cell biosensor. One method of developing such whole cell biosensors in yeast is by exploiting its mating pathway, which is normally induced by secreted pheromones leading to downstream expression of various genes. Functional expression of different recognition elements or receptors and their coupling to the yeast mating pathway can enable sensing of a variety of ligands. In this work, we have engineered a yeast strain to functionally express a heterologous human olfactory receptor gene which can be coupled to the pheromone signaling pathway, allowing yeast to detect medium chain length fatty acids, alcohols and aldehydes for the first time. Functionally expressing heterologous olfactory receptors in yeast is a challenging task because no definitive method exists on how to express such receptors on the yeast cell surface and couple them to the downstream signaling pathway. We explore in this work how the yeast cell can selectively respond to two activating ligands via two different receptors. We also demonstrate in this work that a synthetic transcription factor can substitute for the native transcription factor in the yeast mating pathway. We believe our biosensor will not only have various uses as a versatile sensor but also aid in the design of synthetic genetic circuits.