Archive

Our Science
Home › Science Highlights

Bioinformatics challenges for metagenomic analyses

There are more microbes in, on and around the planet than there are stars in the sky. However, the vast majority of these microorganisms have not yet been studied, in part because many of them do not thrive when moved out of their natural environment. A spoonful of soil contains a complex and diverse microbial… [Read More]

Elucidating bacteria’s roles in ant fungal gardens

Leafcutter ants cultivate fungal gardens that serve as their primary food source. Working toward the goal of harnessing novel enzymes for breaking down plant biomass to produce cellulosic biofuels, Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) researchers have been studying the process by which the fungi break down the plant leaves harvested by the ants and… [Read More]

Analyzing enzymes for a PAH degradation pathway

Microbial activity is crucial for breaking down compounds, removing pollutants and chemically transforming organic compounds. Some of these pollutants are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) found in contaminated soils. The PAH phenanthrene, for example, can be broken down by the bacterium Arthobacterphenanthrenivorans, which was isolated from a creosote-polluted site in Greece, and used by the microbe… [Read More]

Dietary impacts on hoatzin crop microbial communities

Many DOE JGI metagenomic projects focus on microbial communities in the guts of the cow, termite and even the desert locust, all known to break down plant biomass for energy. In studying these and other gut microbial communities, researchers hope to identify and isolate genes involved in plant biomass degradation, and apply them to biofuel… [Read More]

A new approach for improve genome assembly

Assembling a genome from fragments of DNA sequence is often compared to assembling a puzzle. One of the problems researchers face with the increasing use of next-generation sequencing technologies is that the pieces of DNA sequence generated by the 454 or Illumina platforms are much smaller and far more numerous than those produced by the… [Read More]

The role of hydrophobins in plant-fungal mutualism

To get an idea of the importance of mutualistic relationships between plants and fungi, consider that a third of the carbon sequestered in the soil of boreal forests are composed of the wood residues after the fungi break down the cellulose. Maintaining the interface between the fungi and their hosts is the job of small… [Read More]

A toolkit for T. reesei

The availability of an organism’s genome sequence is useful for improving downstream applications such as large-scale biofuel production, but it is only the first step on this path. In the case of the fungus Trichoderma reesei, whose genome sequence was published by the DOE JGI in 2008, the cellulases in T. reesei have multiple industrial… [Read More]

Cyanobacteria shed light on carboxysome complexity

Found in temperate and tropical oceans, Prochlorococcus cyanobacteria are considered the world’s most abundant photosynthetic organisms, able to convert sunlight to energy at depths of 200 meters. Despite their size, they are estimated to contribute up to half of the marine biological carbon sequestration. Prochlorococcusis a unicellular cyanobacterium that dominates the temperate and tropical oceans. … [Read More]

Boosting knowledge of nitrogen-fixing bacteria

No plant is an island; interactions with complex microbial communities both above the ground and below the ground shape the plant’s growth rates and overall health. Understanding these plant-microbe interactions can lead to improvements in plant health and productivity and carbon sequestration, which can be applied toward DOE missions in bioenergy and biogeochemistry. Dark-field photo… [Read More]

Engineering bacteria to produce biodiesel

Biodiesel production typically starts with oil-rich energy crops such as soybean, palm or rapeseed, which are harvested and then converted into fatty acids for use as fuel. The cost of expanding oilseed crop production is a limiting factor in allowing biodiesel to compete with fossil fuel sources. One alternative to using oilseed crops that many… [Read More]