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Rumenating on improving biofuel production

Developing alternative fuels from plants has been challenging in part due to the high costs associated with processing plant biomass to more easily convert it into sugars and from there into biofuels. Ruminants such as the cow, however, can eat more than a hundred pounds of plant matter a day and break it down.  Switchgrass… [Read More]

Cow rumen metagenome study on COSMOS Magazine

The result was 270 billion base pairs of genetic code, almost a hundred times more than the human genome, and an estimated two million potential genes to be investigated. To find which bacteria could digest cellulose, the researchers compared codes with known regions of Carbohydrate Active Enzymes called CAZymes. “Regions include domains that bind cellulose… [Read More]

Cow rumen metagenome study in R&D Magazine

In the new study, the researchers focused on switchgrass, a promising biofuels crop. After incubating the switchgrass in the rumen for 72 hours, researchers conducted a genomic analysis of all of the microbes that adhered to switchgrass. This “metagenomic” approach, led by Edward Rubin, of the DOE Joint Genome Institute and the Lawrence Berkeley National… [Read More]

Cow rumen metagenome study on GenomeWeb’s The Daily Scan

In Science this week, a team led by investigators at the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute reports its discovery of 27,755 putative carbohydrate-active genes among cow rumen microbes through metagenomic sequencing. The team also found that these genes “expressed 90 candidate proteins, of which 57 percent were enzymatically active against cellulosic substrates,” which… [Read More]

Cow rumen metagenome study on ABC Science

In this case, the goal was to find microbes that make enzymes that can efficiently break down the toughest fibres in switchgrass, a tough crop that can be used to produce ethanol and which can grow in places where food crops do not grow well. But switchgrass is very tough to break down. Read more… [Read More]

Cow rumen metagenome study on Times Live

They used new genetic sequencing techniques to find microbes that make enzymes that in turn can break down tough grasses into usable products. Writing in the journal Science on Thursday, they said they took samples directly from the rumen — the organ in cattle that ferments and breaks down grass. Read more on Times Live… [Read More]

Cow rumen metagenome study in Technology Review

The first step in cellulosic biofuels is converting tough plant materials made of cellulose and lignin into sugars that can then be fermented to make fuels. But this is expensive and currently requires a large quantity of enzymes to break down cellulose. “We’re talking truckloads,” says Frances Arnold, a professor of chemical engineering at Caltech… [Read More]

Cow rumen metagenome study on Medill Reports

Of those, 27,775 show markers for enzymes specific to breaking down cellulose sugars in plants. “One of the neat things,” Hess said, “is that we established a catalog of enzymes that we are interested in, which will be available Friday for anyone to access.” Read more on Medill Reports. [Read More]

Cow rumen metagenome study on TVNZ

Identifying the enzymes that give the tiny bacteria this power could make it easier to turn switchgrass and other plant products into fuel in factories. Ethanol makers will produce about 49 billion litres of the renewable fuel this year, chiefly from corn. A 2007 law requires annual use of 136 billion litres from 2022 and… [Read More]

Cow rumen metagenome study on PlanetArk

To make sure they found the right microbes in action, they used a cow that had a hole surgically opened right into its rumen. The researchers needed to find the bacteria that worked in airless environments like a cow’s insides.Rubin’s team used metagenomics, a gene-sequencing approach that maps the DNA of a community of organisms… [Read More]