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Content Tagged "lignin"

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]

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]

Comparing White Rots to Shed Light on Wood-Colonizing Habit

White-rot basidiomycetes can degrade all components of lignocellulosicbiomass, including lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose. Thus, harnessing the metabolic potential of these organisms is key to developing cost-effective technologies for the production of renewable energy and value-added co-products from residual plant biomass. A comparative analysis of the white rot fungus, Phanerochaetecarnosa, isolated from softwoods, andPhanerochaetechrysosporium, isolated from… [Read More]

Fungal genomics and coal formation in The Green Optimistic

White rot fungi from the class of fungi known as Agaricomycetes are capable of degrading the polymer lignin. Lignin is found in plant tissues and is largely responsible for the rigid structure of plant cell walls. The researchers postulated that fungal degradation of lignin caused plant matter to be broken down into its basic components and… [Read More]

Fungal genomics and coal formation in Clean Technica

In an ironic twist, genomics researchers have stumbled upon an incredible discovery – the same ancestral fungus that ended coal formation millennia ago may now be able to boost biofuel and bioenergy production. Read more at Clean Technica [Read More]

White rot fungal genomics for biopulping in Biomass Magazine

Something special is happening with a research project focused on two white rot fungi genomes. Led by the U.S. DOE’s Joint Genome Institute, a team of international researchers is collaborating on a project to sequence and analyze the fungi strains to understand how enzymes present in the fungi break down plant biomass. It’s not the research… [Read More]

On white rot, coal and biofuels in ClimateWire

The evolutionary rise of a common fungus — white rot — is responsible for the end of underground coal formation 60 million years ago, scientists say in a paper published last week in Science.Ironically, that same fungus could now be a key element to help the world move away from fossil fuels by helping to create… [Read More]

Linking white rot fungi and the Carboniferous period in Scientific American

Now a new genomic analysis suggests why Earth significantly slowed its coal-making processes roughly 300 million years ago—mushrooms evolved the ability to break down lignin. “These white rot fungi are major decomposers of wood and the only organism that achieves substantial degradation of lignin,” explains mycologist David Hibbett of Clark University in Massachusetts, who led the research… [Read More]

White rot fungal genomics analysis on EcoSeed

Scientists at the Energy Department’s Joint Genome Institute are comparing the genetic structure of two strains of white rot fungi in order to develop better enzymes for biofuel production.White rot fungi digest moist wood, causing it to rot and decay. These fungi possess natural enzymes that break down the cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin of plant… [Read More]

Searching for the basis of ligninolytic selectivity

Many fungal genome projects being carried out at the DOE JGI focus on understanding how enzymes can break down cellulose and lignin, the two most abundant biopolymers on Earth, in order to harness these capabilities for industrial applications such as biofuels production. Scanning electron micrograph of Ceriporiopsissubvermispora mycelium on wood.  (Robert Blanchette, University of Minnesota)… [Read More]