Working Towards the Heterologous Expression of Styrene Monooxygenases for Styrene Epoxidation and Reaction Cascades

Abstract: Previously, styrene oxide has been used as starting material in the reaction cascade for obtaining 2-hydroxyacetophenone. If the path could be extended to instead start with styrene as substrate, it would be an advantage financially. The aim of this degree project was to produce two monooxygenase components needed for the epoxidation of styrene. The coding sequence for styrene monooxygenase component StyA had in an earlier project been inserted in a plasmid which in this project was used for inserting the gene coding for the styrene monooxygenase component StyB. The transformation of the ligated plasmid became problematic and did not result in the expected outcome. When doing an transformation directly on the ligation mixture, the result of the experiment was successful. Consequently, the problem was likely due to the poor condition of the cells used.