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Destroyer of Houses Harnessed for Biofuel Production

Although people rarely see the positives when their wooden houses begin to rot, scientists at the DOE JGI have found a silver lining in this destructive phenomenon. Through DNA sequencing and a comparative analysis with other fungi that DOE JGI has characterized, researchers have homed in on the mechanisms that the brown rot, Serpula lacrymans,… [Read More]

Dry rot (Serpula) genome project on eNews Park Forest

In 2007 the US Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute sequenced Serpula lacrymans in order to see if the way it breaks down cellulose in wood could be harnessed for biofuel production. An international team analysing the genome have found the enzyme mechanisms that could explain the aggressive decay caused by this form of dry… [Read More]

Dry rot (Serpula) project in Biofuels Journal

“For example, if you go back far enough in time to the period when trees were developing, there was no way to break lignocellulose down, which led to the coal seams we tap today.“When the fungi figured out how to break down lignocellulose, the coevolution of the fungi and trees kick-started the carbon cycle again.”… [Read More]

Dry rot (Serpula) genome project on Greenwire

Researchers have sequenced the genome for brown rot — also known as dry rot — in a step that could have applications for biofuels and better understanding of forest carbon cycling. Dry rot, a scourge of homeowners, is a fungus that decays wood by attacking its sugars — cellulose and hemicellulose — and working around… [Read More]

Serpula genome project on MyCor Fungal Web Genomics

The other good news of this Bastille Day: our paper on the Serpula lacrymans genome is reported online July 14 in Science Express. The Domestic Dry Rot (Serpula lacrymans, Basidiomycete, Coniophoraceae) comprises two subgroups, S. lacrymans varshastensis, found in montane conifer forests in the Himalayan foothills, and S. lacrymans var lacrymans, cause of building dry rot, which diverged in historic time [Kauserud et al. (2007) Mol. Ecol.16: 3350-3360].  Read… [Read More]

DOE JGI/JBEI collaboration in DomesticFuels.com

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are trying to discover salt-loving organisms that may be more efficient in treating biomass and improve sugar yield for biofuel production. The class of solvents known as ionic liquids, are liquid forms of salt that… [Read More]

UCLA microbiologists find energy-efficient structures in archaeon

a type of Archaea known as Methanosprillum hungatei contains incredibly efficient energy-storage structures. The findings are published in the July 5 issue of the journal Environmental Microbiology. M. hungatei is of considerable environmental significance because of its unique ability to form symbiotic relationships with syntrophic bacteria to break down organic matter and produce methane gas. Yet while their important role in… [Read More]

Efficiency Improvements in Biofuels Production

To overcome the difficulties of converting cellulosic biomass into high energy-content fuel, researchers have been seeking to improve various stages of the process. One big obstacle that stands in the way is that most enzymes are inefficient at breaking down biomass when in the presence of ionic liquids, solvents that have proven effective at treating the… [Read More]

DOE JGI/JBEI collaboration in Green Car Congress

Such salt-tolerant enzymes, particularly cellulases, offer significant advantages for industrial utility over conventional enzymes, they said. The group plans to expand this research to develop a full complement of enzymes that is tailored for the ionic liquid process technology with the goal of demonstrating a complete biomass-to-sugar process, one they hope can enable the commercial… [Read More]