US DOE JGI Reviews Role of Genomics in Cellulose-based Biofuels Development

The role of genomics in the development of cellulosic biofuels was recently reviewed by Director Eddy Rubin, of the United States Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (US-DOE-JGI). Recent studies have indicated that cellulose-based biofuels (“cellulose ethanol”) have good potential for reducing global dependence on fossil fuels. Consequently, strategies for overcoming the barriers in the large scale production of cellulose-based biofuels have been a major focus of research. Genomic information on plants and microorganisms can play an important role in accelerated cellulose-based biofuel development. In the review, Director Rubin describes the basic processes for cellulosic biofuel production and how genomics can “catalyze” research strategies for development  from (1) biomass cultivation/harvesting, to (2) pretreatment/saccharification (delignification and breakdown of plant-cell wall cellulose to component sugars), to (3) ethanol fermentation (of component sugars). In biomass cultivation/harvesting, for example, genomics can zero-in on important agronomic traits and could contribute to the cultivation of dedicated bioenergy crops that are fast growing, drought/pest resistant, and with plant cell-wall compositions that can easily/inexpensively be pretreated/saccharified. Genomic information from microorganisms (bacteria/fungi) and metagenomics (example, termite hindgut analysis) could lead to novel enzyme systems for delignification, saccharification and ethanol fermentation. “Rapid new sequencing methods and the large-scale genomics previously applied to sequencing the human genome are being exploited by bioenergy researchers to design next-generation biofuels”. The complete review can be accessed at the Nature journal web site (URL above).

Related information (genomics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genomics