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Content Tagged "bioenergy"

Beetle gut microbes bore through woody tissues

Profile of wood-boring beetle’s midgut microbial community identifies candidate genes involved in processes including lignin degradation The Science Metagenomics allowed researchers to conduct a functional analysis of the midgut microbial community in the Asian longhorned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis), an invasive insect that feeds on lignin in deciduous trees such as poplars and willows. The Impact… [Read More]

DOE Early Career Awardee’s work to involve DOE JGI collaboration

O’Malley’s research, which she recently presented at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society, involves the use of anaerobic gut fungi from horses, sheep, and other large herbivores to convert the cellulose in plants into sugars. Nature has evolved these fungi to break through lignin, a tough biopolymer that surrounds cellulose, and convert that… [Read More]

Termite diets dictate microbes in their guts

Realtors and homeowners cringe at the thought of termites on their properties, but for bioenergy researchers, these insects are rich harbors of microbial communities that can break down woody lignocellulose. In 2007, the DOE Joint Genome Institute sequenced the microbes in the hindgut of termites from Costa Rica (from the Nasutitermesgenus) to identify the genes… [Read More]

A peach of a genome with breeding lessons for biofuels crops

Several plants sequenced by the DOE Joint Genome Institute have been considered “flagship” genomes due to their importance to DOE mission and plant science. Among these plants are poplar, the first tree sequenced and a candidate bioenergy feedstock, and soybean, the primary source of biodiesel in the United States. Other plant genomes are important for… [Read More]

Peach genome project in Biofuels Digest

In California, the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) is working to isolate the “evergreen” locus in peaches, which extends the growing season of the plant. Said Daniel Rokhsar, head of the DOE JGI Eukaryotic Program, “In theory, it could be manipulated in poplar to increase the accumulation of biomass.” Peach genes… [Read More]

Bacterial sequence to help understand ant fungal gardens

Leaf-cutter ant colonies are comprised of millions of ants harvesting hundreds of kilos of leaves annually for use in growing their primary food source, a fungus. The fungal gardens tended by these ants allow them to convert plant biomass on a very large scale. Bioenergy researchers are looking at the microbial composition of the fungal… [Read More]

Lessons learned from comparing Cochliobolus fungi

Cochliobolus fungi are cereal grain pathogens in the Dothideomycetes class, and many species are known to infect crops such as corn, rice, barley, wheat and oats, causing severe losses at harvest time and to biomass feedstocks for biofuels. In a study published January 24, 2013 in Plos Genetics, one in a series of publications concerning… [Read More]