Uof M researchers find microbial cocktail best for isobutanol production

Biofuels Digest

Meghan Sapp | August 20, 2013

 

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Gut Microbe Makes Diesel Biofuel

Scientific American

By David Biello

 

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Read article in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (USA)

Design of a dynamic sensor-regulator system for production of chemicals and fuels derived from fatty acids

nature biotechnology

Microbial production of chemicals is now an attractive alternative to chemical synthesis. Current efforts focus mainly on constructing pathways to produce different types of molecules1, 2, 3. However, there are few strategies for engineering regulatory components to improve product titers and conversion yields of heterologous pathways4. Here we developed a dynamic sensor-regulator system (DSRS) to produce fatty acid–based products in Escherichia coli, and demonstrated its use for biodiesel production. The DSRS uses a transcription factor that senses a key intermediate and dynamically regulates the expression of genes involved in biodiesel production. This DSRS substantially improved the stability of biodiesel-producing strains and increased the titer to 1.5 g/l and the yield threefold to 28% of the theoretical maximum. Given the large number of natural sensors available, this DSRS strategy can be extended to many other biosynthetic pathways to balance metabolism, thereby increasing product titers and conversion yields and stabilizing production hosts.

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E. Coli Bacteria Engineered to Eat Switchgrass and Make Transportation Fuels

Science Daily

ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2011) — A milestone has been reached on the road to developing advanced biofuels that can replace gasoline, diesel and jet fuels with a domestically-produced clean, green, renewable alternative.

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have engineered the first strains of Escherichia colibacteria that can digest switchgrass biomass and synthesize its sugars into all three of those transportation fuels. What's more, the microbes are able to do this without any help from enzyme additives.

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Stanford University Researchers Find E. coli Could Convert Sugars to Biodiesel at Extraordinary Rate

Biofuels Journal
Date Posted: November 11, 2011
by Louis Bergeron

When it comes to making biodiesel cheaply and efficiently enough to be commercially feasible, E. coli may prove to be "the little bacterial engine that could," say Stanford researchers.

Biodiesel can be made from plant oil or animal fat – usually the former.

Used cooking oil from restaurants is common, but for biodiesel to contribute significantly to reducing fossil fuel use, there needs to be a way to mass produce it from plant-derived raw materials.

The problem is that synthesizing biodiesel is complicated. That is where E. coli comes in.

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E.coli seen spawning biofuel in five years

Reuters Africa
Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:20am GMT
By Sarah McBride

* Scientist: Technology works, but not yet at scale
* Biofuels won't be at critical mass for two decades
* Plastics based on e.coli already for sale

ASPEN, Colorado, June 28 (Reuters) - The bacteria behind food poisoning worldwide, the mighty e.coli, could be turned into a commercially available biofuel in five years, a U.S. scientist told technology industry and government leaders on Tuesday.

Several companies are working on the technology, which has been proven in laboratories but is not yet yielding enough fuel to be commercially viable, scientist Jay Keasling told the Aspen Ideas Festival on Tuesday.

Keasling, chief executive officer of the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint BioEnergy Institute, has pioneered research in biofuels based on substances ranging from yeast to e.coli and expects e.coli fuel production to improve.

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Studies focus on feed ingredient's E. coli effects on cattle

theIndependent.com
Published: Sunday, May 22, 2011 12:15 AM CDT

After corn is processed to make ethanol, what's left of the corn looks something like slightly dampened cornmeal, though a somewhat darker yellow, and not as finely ground. Known as "wet distiller's grains with solubles" (WDGS), this byproduct is sometimes used as a cattle feed ingredient. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists in Clay Center are studying the pros and cons of that practice.

WDGS is rich in protein, and also provides calories and minerals, according to James E. Wells, a microbiologist with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS).

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Saving biofuels’ magic bugs from their own toxins

Biofuels Digest
by Thomas Saidak May 13, 2011

In California, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announced that Joint BioEnergy Institute researchers have found a way to help microbes survive the toxicity caused by the very compounds that they secrete in order to produce biofuels. Many of the best candidate compounds for advanced biofuels are toxic to microbes, which presents a “production versus survival” conundrum.

Researchers at the DOE’s JBEI have provided a solution to this problem by developing a library of microbial efflux pumps that were shown to significantly reduce the toxicity of seven representative biofuels in engineered strains of Escherichia coli. Microbes employ various strategies for addressing cell toxicity but perhaps the most effective are efflux pumps, proteins in the cytoplasmic membrane of cells whose function is to transport toxic substances out of the cell.

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USDA Scientists Advance Biofuel Production

AZO.com
Posted Sep 23, 2010

With the help of genetic materials from a cow's rumen, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists are developing new ways to break down plant fibers for conversion into biofuel.

To convert corn stover and switchgrass into biofuel, the plant fibers must first be broken down into sugars. But cell wall polymers are cross-linked in various ways that make them very resistant to breaking down, according to Dominic Wong, a chemist at the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Western Regional Research Center, in Albany, Calif. ARS is the principal intramural scientific research agency of USDA.

Previous studies have shown that a special group of enzymes known as feruloyl esterases (FAEs) are capable of breaking apart key links between the polymers, and that the enzymes are produced by certain types of microbes that degrade plant materials. Wong collected the microbial population from a cow's rumen, and screened their genetic compositions to find genes that produce FAE enzymes.

Working with scientific partners at Cargill, Wong has isolated, sequenced and cloned 12 genes capable of being introduced into Escherichia coli for production of the enzymes, which can then be used to break loose the polymeric network in the plant cell wall. Wong and the Cargill team have filed a provisional patent application on the FAE genes and enzymes.

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Source: http://www.ree.usda.gov/

From Stomach Bug to Biofuel

BayCitizen.org
By Ambika Kandasamy, SF Public Press on September 1, 2010 - 5:02 p.m. PDT

Berkeley scientists use E. coli to produce green energy alternative
A team of local biotech researchers may have found a way to avoid using essential food crops for fuel, by genetically modifying harmless strains of a bacteria most people associate with human food poisoning.

The result is an extremely expensive fuel — hardly competitive with fossil fuels at $25 per gallon — but it marks the beginning of a new look at green energy.

Scientists led by University of California, Berkeley professor Jay Keasling created an alternative for biodiesel production harnessing E. coli, the bacteria responsible for some foodborne illnesses.

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Gene manipulation could aid biofuel development

Tampa Bay Online
The Tampa Tribune
Published: July 2, 2010

Moving a three-gene cluster from one tiny bacterium to another may make a big contribution to the quest to make commercially viable biofuels.

Working at the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint BioEnergy Institute, researchers have found that the trio of genes may play a role in turning sugar molecules from plants into green biofuels.

Harry Beller, an environmental microbiologist who directs the Emeryville, Calif.-based institute's Biofuels Pathways Department, and his colleagues implanted the three-gene cluster from the bacterium Micrococcus luteus was into the well-known intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli.

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Gonzalez Gets Award For Finding Way To Turn E. Coli Into Biofuel

TheStreet.com
By American Business Journal 05/19/10 - 01:48 PM EDT

Escherichia coli, E. coli for short, is best known as the bacterium that can cause foodborne illnesses, but to researcher Ramon Gonzalez, E. coli can also be an alternative energy source.

Gonzalez, the William W. Akers Assistant Professor in the chemical and biomolecular engineering and bioengineering departments of Rice University, received the 2010 Glycerine Innovation Award for identifying a way to use a safe form of E. coli to convert glycerine into ethanol.

Glycerine is the major byproduct of biodiesel production.

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Fueled by a Virus

EMagazine.com
March 29, 2010
By Erin Schneider

An E. coli virus strain that can turn raw plant matter into diesel without any refinement or additional steps has been developed by a group of researchers including members from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), employees from next-gen biofuel company LS9 and scientists from UC Berkeley.

After about a dozen genetic adjustments, the E. coli microbe was successfully modified to have the ability to covert the fatty-acid molecules in the plants directly into fuels and other chemicals. This process produces diesel molecules, alcohols and waxes directly from hemicellulose – a main component in plants. The researchers anticipate that their diesel-making E. coli will also be able to produce environmentally friendly surfactants, solvents and lubricants, and experimentation demonstrates that the process can also be appropriately adjusted to produce substances suitable for the substitute of gasoline.

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Turning E. Coli into Road-Ready Diesel

CBS News
Jan. 29, 2010

New Study Suggests the Bacteria Could Potentially Wind Up Turning the Wheels of your Car
(AP) (CBS) This article was written by Discover's Smriti Rao.

Most of us associate the bacteria E. coli with nasty stomach ailments. But a new study published in Nature magazine suggests E. coli can not just turn stomachs, but could potentially turn the wheels of your car, since a genetically engineered strain of the bacteria has produced clean, road-ready biodiesel.

The bacteria can work on any type of biomass, including wood chip, switchgrass, and the plant parts that are left behind after a harvest-all contain cellulose, a structural material that comprises much of a plant’s mass. Study coauthor Jay Keasling and his colleagues report engineering E. coli bacteria to synthesize and excrete the enzyme hemicellulase, which breaks down cellulose into sugars.

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With a Little Help, E. Coli Turns Biomass Directly to Biodiesel

PopSci.com (Popular Science)
By Clay Dillow
Posted 01.28.2010 at 10:32 am

We know how to convert biomass to biodiesel, but the economics of doing so makes many prevailing methods of doing so expensive and unfeasible, keeping an alternative-fueled future just out of reach. But a collaboration between the DOE and private firm LS9 has found a way to coax a strain of E. coli bacteria to produce biodiesel from biomass without further chemical processes, a breakthrough that could pave the way for cheaper, more abundant biofuels.

The sugars dwelling in cellulosic biomass are the target of many alternative fuel schemes, but they can be difficult to get to and even more difficult to process into the fatty acids that we need to make biofuels. E. coli has long been known to synthesize fatty acids efficiently, but natural processes make harvesting those acids particularly difficult. Researchers would like E. coli to biosynthesize indefinitely, but like any organism trying to remain competitive in nature, E. coli doesn't waste energy manufacturing more fatty acids than it needs to survive.

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Antibiotics pose concern for ethanol producers

AgWeek
Mark Steil, Minnesota Public Radio News
Published: 04/06/2009

WORTHINGTON, Minn. — Ethanol’s main by-product, which is sold as livestock feed, has raised potential food safety concerns.

Several studies have linked the byproduct, known as distillers grain, to elevated rates of E. coli in cattle. And now, distillers grain is facing further scrutiny because the Food and Drug Administration has found that it often contains antibiotics left over from making ethanol.

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Forget Ethanol, UCLA Looks At Bacteria For Fuel

KCAL9 CBS2
Dec 20, 2008 10:20 am US/Pacific
LOS ANGELES

A strain of bacteria usually associated with polluted beaches has been genetically modified by UCLA scientists, and the new bug has the potential of making jet fuel, gasoline and other petroleum products that deliver much more energy.

E. coli, the humble bug found in human digestive tracts, can be modified so that each cell can generate "long-chain alcohol," an advance that could reduce global warming and increase fuel efficiency by using the bacteria to excrete a better form of fuel, UCLA announced.

Scientists at UCLA have for the first time produced E. coli that can generate alcohol with five carbon atoms per molecule, instead of the normal two or three. Alcohol molecules with eight carbon atoms may also be possible, they report in this month's edition of the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Synthetic e.coli for biofuel?

StraitsTimes.com
Dec 9, 2008

CHICAGO - US RESEARCHER have engineered a synthetic version of the common e. coli bacteria that could help build a better biofuel, according to a study published on Monday.

By altering the basic genetic structure of the bacteria, researchers were able to stimulate it to produce long-chain alcohols that are denser in energy than those found in nature.

Ethanol, one of the leading sources of biofuel, contains just two carbon atoms, and the most common naturally-produced long-chain alcohols contain no more than five carbon atoms.

But alcohols produced for the e. coli study by the University of California's Los Angeles lab contain up to eight carbon atoms, which means they pack a lot more energy.

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USDA study confirms link between ethanol by-product and E. coli

Minnesota Public Radio
by Mark Steil
October 17, 2008

A U.S. Agriculture Department study shows a significant increase of potentially harmful E. coli bacteria in cattle that are fed an ethanol by-product known as distiller's grain. Distillers grain is a common ingredient in cattle feed. But researchers say it's too soon to know whether cattle producers should change the amount of distiller's grain they feed to their herds.

St. Paul, Minn. — The study was conducted at the USDA's meat research center at Clay Center, Nebraska. USDA researcher Jim Wells said his team studied 600 steers. Half the group was fed corn; the other half ate feed that contained 40 percent distiller's grain. The scientists tested the animal's fecal matter.

They were on the lookout for one of the most dangerous forms of the bacteria; E. coli 0157:H7. It can cause a wide range of illness in humans, even death. Wells said the steers fed the distiller's grain ration had more of the harmful E. coli in their digestive tracts. And he attributes that increase to the heavy ration of the ethanol by-product.

"I do believe that for the most part the difference is probably due to diet," said Wells. "But whether or not all of the difference is due to diet we cannot say."

Wells said the study found E. coli in almost 15 percent of the samples from the distiller's grain group. That compares to 1.5 percent in the corn-fed group.

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K-State Researchers Awarded Nearly $1 Million To Test Remedies, Investigate Link Between E. Coli and Distillers’ Grains

Cattlenetwork.com
8/22/2008 9:51:00 AM

MANHATTAN -- A research team headed by Kansas State University E. coli O157:H7 expert T.G. Nagaraja has been tapped by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study both the connection between feeding distillers' grains and E. coli 0157:H7 in cattle and several strategies to reduce the presence of the naturally occurring pathogen in the animals.

The group has received a $939,220 National Research Initiative in Food Safety grant. Nagaraja, a university distinguished professor of microbiology, said the issue of meat safety is receiving full attention from both researchers and the meat industry and is being addressed.

"This research project will greatly enhance our understanding of the exact relationship between dietary distillers' grains and E. coli 0157:H7 in cattle, as well as provide us with an opportunity to look at novel ways to mitigate the potential risks of feeding this valuable co-product," Nagaraja said.

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