{"id":1152,"date":"2026-07-07T14:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T12:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bryomolecules.eu\/?p=1152"},"modified":"2026-07-07T14:54:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T12:54:23","slug":"halfway-throug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bryomolecules.eu\/index.php\/2026\/07\/07\/halfway-throug\/","title":{"rendered":"Halfway\u00a0through:\u00a0the results achieved in the first 18 months of BRYOMOLECULES\u2019s journey\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-advanced-heading uagb-block-7897440b\"><h2 class=\"uagb-heading-text\">Halfway\u00a0through:\u00a0the results achieved in the first 18 months of BRYOMOLECULES\u2019s journey\u00a0<\/h2><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The BRYOMOLECULES project had its midterm review meeting (M18) on 12 May 2026. The project partners had the opportunity to meet with the expert reviewer and project officer from the <a href=\"https:\/\/rea.ec.europa.eu\/index_en\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/rea.ec.europa.eu\/index_en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">European Research Executive Agency (REA)<\/a>. We shared BRYOMOLECULES achievements so far, and discussed upcoming challenges, receiving positive feedback and valuable recommendations for the project\u2019s future.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was a major check point to assess the project progress halfway through its duration, celebrate the milestones achieved and identify points of attention for improvement in the remaining 18 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-ast-global-color-7-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-89c33f05aeeb0a8edbbef8c68218891f wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Scientific milestones summary&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The project has successfully generated the largest coherent dataset of metabolomic and transcriptomic&nbsp;data for European bryophytes worldwide, shifting the technological baseline from fragmented&nbsp;academic data to a&nbsp;consolidated&nbsp;industrial discovery engine. <br>The main achievements of the project are:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Bryophyte Collection and Cultivation: <\/strong>A total of 101 distinct bryophyte taxa (49 moss species\/52&nbsp;accessions; 52 liverwort species\/90 accessions) were collected and cultivated during the first&nbsp;18 months. They&nbsp;constitute&nbsp;the core BRYOMOLECULES collection that has been used for all downstream&nbsp;analyses.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Metabolomics bioprospecting:<\/strong> the project obtained the metabolomes&nbsp;of 84 distinct bryophyte taxa (48 moss species\/57 accessions; 36 liverwort species\/86 accessions),&nbsp;thus reaching and partly exceeding the foreseen targets. Untargeted and targeted profiling (using&nbsp;GC-MS and LC-MS\/MS) successfully annotated 346 unique metabolites in liverworts and 163&nbsp;unique metabolites in mosses, spanning critical compound classes such as bibenzyls,&nbsp;bisbibenzyls,&nbsp;flavonoids, and structurally diverse sesquiterpenoids.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>RNA-Sequencing and Gene Discovery:<\/strong> The project obtained the transcriptomes of 101 distinct&nbsp;bryophyte taxa (49 moss species\/52 accessions; 52 liverwort species\/90 accessions) for a total of 102&nbsp;independent assemblies, thus reaching and partly exceeding the foreseen targets.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Metabolic Engineering:<\/strong> Biosynthetic genes for a total of 16 terpenoids were successfully&nbsp;characterized from liverwort species,&nbsp;identifying&nbsp;enzymes with highly&nbsp;specific activities to produce&nbsp;seven of them. Engineering of two BACs was&nbsp;initiated, with early validations&nbsp;identifying&nbsp;yeast&nbsp;as a highly suitable host system.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Discovery of New Biological Activities: <\/strong>the bioassays and enzymatic assays to identify novel&nbsp;biological activities on total bryophytes exudates or plant extracts have been carried out for a total of&nbsp;96&nbsp;and 24 bryophyte samples, respectively&nbsp;(jointly corresponding to 54 unique moss exudates and&nbsp;48 moss extracts), plus three pure compounds. Additionally, the development of enzyme&nbsp;inhibition assays for two therapeutic targets and four cosmetic targets was carried out in view of their&nbsp;application to the screening of bryophyte extracts.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-ast-global-color-7-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-1a7fe8b5a818ce9a4e410d434573d178 wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Contribution beyond the&nbsp;state-of-the-art&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The large and highly integrated dataset of transcriptomic and metabolomic data produced in&nbsp;BRYOMOLECULES is unique in its kind for bryophytes. The BRYOMOLECULES dataset allows&nbsp;the direct association of expressed genes to the corresponding metabolic profiles as well as&nbsp;bioactivities, providing a more direct and effective way for the identification and engineering of the&nbsp;most interesting biosynthetic pathways. The main results beyond the&nbsp;state of the art, in more detail, are:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Preparation and propagation of 50&nbsp;initial&nbsp;bryophyte accessions&nbsp;in liquid media and immersion bioreactors&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Expansion of the bryophyte collection, with 129 new unique wild liverwort accessions across 79&nbsp;distinct taxa&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Establishment of 50 new axenic liverwort accessions of 45 unique taxa;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Optimization of cultivation techniques and protocols in bioreactors (attained TRL4)&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Optimization of extraction and analytical protocols for low biomass bryophytes&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Metabolomes obtained for 57 moss accessions&nbsp;and&nbsp;86 liverwort accessions&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Generated 114 high-quality RNA-Seq datasets from 102&nbsp;biosamples&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Improved decontamination and assembly pipelines&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Assembled 102 transcriptomes&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Characterized and engineered in heterologous hosts 12 terpene synthases (MTPSLs),&nbsp;engineering&nbsp;or&nbsp;proof of concept production of two bioactive compounds&nbsp;(achieved TRL4).&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Bioactivities&nbsp;assessments for&nbsp;100 bryophyte&nbsp;extracts.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Established six novel inhibition assays for enzymes relevant to the cosmetic and pharmaceutical&nbsp;sectors (TRL3).&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Enzymatic assays performed on 24 bryophyte samples&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-ast-global-color-7-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-2f0de1aa89b81cfa17dba368a997740f wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Looking to the future&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The BRYOMOLECULES consortium is committed to&nbsp;finalising&nbsp;the research being conducted in the second part of the&nbsp;project&#8217;s&nbsp;lifetime.&nbsp;In particular, in-depth mining and experimental validation of known and novel biosynthetic enzymes and pathways from liverworts will continue, along with the discovery of novel bioactivities relevant to the&nbsp;cosmetic and pharmaceutical sectors and beyond. Engineering of heterologous hosts for the sustainable production of bryophyte-derived bioactive compounds will result in&nbsp;viable&nbsp;options for&nbsp;large-scale production and uptake from the reference markets.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To ensure further&nbsp;valorisation&nbsp;of the project results and&nbsp;push the demonstration, access to market and commercialization roadmap of new cosmetic and&nbsp;pharmaceutical products,&nbsp;the project consortium&nbsp;is looking&nbsp;for stakeholders&nbsp;possibly&nbsp;interested&nbsp;in exploring the adoption&nbsp;of the&nbsp;project&nbsp;results or setting up the collaboration&nbsp;for the development of new products&nbsp;and technologies \u2013 increasing the actual TRL of the BRYOMOLECULES discovery&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;also&nbsp;through the&nbsp;participation&nbsp;in&nbsp;further EU projects.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Are&nbsp;you or&nbsp;your&nbsp;company organisation&nbsp;interested&nbsp;in BRYOMOLECULES outputs?&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><\/strong>We will be happy to hear from you, so feel free to&nbsp;get in touch&nbsp;with&nbsp;us:&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:contact@bryomolecules.eu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">contact@bryomolecules.eu<\/a>&nbsp;. An experienced&nbsp;technology&nbsp;transfer team&nbsp;will support you in&nbsp;catching this opportunity!&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Halfway\u00a0through:\u00a0the results achieved in the first 18 months of BRYOMOLECULES\u2019s journey\u00a0 The BRYOMOLECULES project had its midterm review meeting (M18) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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results achieved in the first 18 months of BRYOMOLECULES\u2019s journey\u00a0 The BRYOMOLECULES project had its midterm review meeting (M18) [&hellip;]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryomolecules.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryomolecules.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryomolecules.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryomolecules.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryomolecules.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1152"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bryomolecules.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1155,"href":"https:\/\/bryomolecules.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152\/revisions\/1155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryomolecules.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryomolecules.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryomolecules.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryomolecules.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}