Author: S. Heather Duncan

Recent research coordinated by the Center for Bioenergy Innovation paves the way for creating biofuels made by microbes with greater speed, efficiency and flexibility. The effort led to major breakthroughs described in a study published in July in Metabolic Engineering.

Debra Mohnen, senior author, in her University of Georgia lab. Credit: Debra Monen/UGA Researchers collaborating through the Center for Bioenergy Innovation (CBI) have discovered important new information about pectin, a starch-like complex sugar that helps hold plant cell walls together. Two recent studies better define the roles of specific pectins and the genes that synthesize […]

CBI research is accelerating the process of engineering microbes to produce bioproducts. Microbes can produce a large array of compounds from biomass sources, like grasses, woody plants  and crop wastes, by using their own enzymes to trigger chemical changes. However, bioengineering a microbe to create each new product can take many years and a significant […]

Researchers collaborating through the Center for Bioenergy Innovation recently developed a way to make the sugars in plant cells more accessible for producing second-generation biofuels. The results are published in Carbohydrate Polymers. The outer walls of plant cells are constructed from polysaccharides, molecules made of bonded sugars. These molecules determine the physical properties of plants […]

Researchers engineered microbes to better convert inexpensive, woody plants into lactic acid. Researchers working with the Center for Bioenergy Innovation have engineered a microbe to better produce lactic acid, which is valuable both economically and environmentally. A bacterium that was improved using laboratory-assisted evolution could eventually help supply the rapidly expanding lactic acid market. Beyond […]

After inoculation with Serendipita fungi, switchgrass root hairs increase in density and surface area. Credit: Prasun Ray et al., IS-MPMI.* Serendipita fungus has a special relationship with plants. When it colonizes the roots of switchgrass, the fungus does not hurt the plant. In fact, it has been shown to increase the plant’s drought tolerance, seed […]

Because next-generation biofuels will depend on the growth and hardiness of woody feedstocks, scientists have sought to better understand how leaf cells quickly respond to environmental cues such as light, temperature and water. These rapid responses take the form of “post-translational modifications” that occur when a plant cell chemically modifies a protein to alter its […]

CBI scientists identified an enzyme that breaks down a major component of several industrial lignin streams. Scientists collaborating through the Center for Bioenergy Innovation have identified a microbial pathway responsible for breaking down the tough components of feedstocks used to make biofuel. Lignin, a complex polymer that gives plant cell walls their structure and strength, […]

Genetic modifications to these poplar trees made it easier to extract sugars for fermentation into ethanol. Credit: Shekhar Joshi, Michigan Technological University Scientists collaborating through the Center for Bioenergy Innovation (CBI) have found that small modifications to a single gene can improve the potential for producing ethanol from poplar trees. Researchers wanted to understand how […]