JONESBORO, ARK. – Ginkgo Bioworks is partnering with GreenLab, a plant biotechnology company that produces proteins in corn, to create brazzein, a sweet-tasting protein, at commercial scale. Brazzein, which may be up to 2,000 times as sweet as sucrose, normally is found in the fruit of the oubli plant in West Africa. Jonesboro-based GreenLab wants to grow brazzein in corn kernels.

GreenLab has proprietary technology allowing the company to grow enzymes and other proteins inside corn kernels. Production of corn may be scaled up with little additional up-front capital and infrastructure, according to GreenLab. After the desired protein is extracted from the kernel, most of the corn proceeds along the value chain, including food, feed or fuel. GreenLab has two enzymes in commercial production, including manganese peroxidase and laccases, and already has grown corn containing brazzein.

The capabilities of Boston-based Ginkgo Bioworks will scale up production of brazzein in three ways: using Ginkgo plant trait services to improve GreenLab’s expression of brazzein in the corn kernel, using Ginkgo protein services to express brazzein in a microbial chassis via precision fermentation and using Ginkgo deployment capabilities to develop downstream processes to purify brazzein from both the corn kernel and fermentation broth.