Genomes, Enzymes and Better Biofuels

According to Yun Xie of ArsTechnica, in terms of large scale production and contribution of greenhouse gases, fuels from cellulosic biomass like grasses and wood residues are superior to sugar—or starch-based alternatives. To convert cellulosic biomass into fuel, however, the raw material must be broken down into the component sugars, which are then converted into biofuels by fermentation. Since the need for biofuels has only become apparent recently, this conversion process isn't optimized. A paper that will appear in Nature today argues that understanding the genomes of the organisms involved will allow scientists to engineer both better plant feedstocks and superior fuel-producing microorganisms.

While food crops have benefited from selective breeding and genetic engineering, the same can't be said for energy crops, reports ArsTechnic. Ideally, energy crops would have a high growth rate, a cell wall composition that eased its breakdown into sugars, and robust growth in diverse environments that are unsuitable for food crops. Genomics holds promise in that the genomes of different plants can be compared and the differences correlated to known gene functions, producing a list of genes related to these traits. This has already been done for several plants, so candidate genes that affect plant height, branch number, stem thickness, and cellulose synthesis have been identified.

The degradation of this raw material into useful sugars needs improvement, as current procedures suffer in terms of price and efficiency. Although scientists have identified many bacteria with enzymes that can degrade cellulosic material, they do not completely understand how they work. Numerous genomic analyses are underway that may shed light on the degradation process, including work on wood-feeding termites and their gut symbiotes, which have been difficult to study in the past. New methods show that the guts of termites are packed with hundreds of cellulose-degrading enzymes, giving scientists a large inventory to pick and choose from.

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