Engineering Anaerobic Gut Fungi for Lignocellulose Breakdown
- Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
Biofuels derived from plant biomass (lignocellulose) are attractive alternatives to petroleum-based products, as they avoid many of the economic and environmental problems that plague traditional energy sources. Breakdown of plant waste into simple sugars would translate into the production of renewable fuels via microbial fermentation. However, existing technologies are insufficient to allow for industrial-scale production of these products due to difficulties associated with the recalcitrance of crude lignin-rich biomass, and the high cost/poor performance of known cellulolytic enzymes (cellulases). Therefore, there is a critical need to develop new technologies to break down lignocellulosic biomass into fermentable sugars for downstream fuel development. Towards this goal, much can be learned by studying how anaerobic microbes depolymerize lignocellulose in biomass-rich environments, such as the digestive tract of large herbivores. Anaerobic gut fungi are native to the gut and rumen of these animals, where they have evolved unique abilities to break down lignocellulosic biomass through invasive growth and the secretion of powerful enzymes. The goal of this project was to engineer anaerobic gut fungi as novel platform organisms for biofuel production from plant material. To accomplish this goal, a panel of anaerobic fungi was isolated form different herbivores and screened for their ability to degrade lignocellulose. Four novel strains were isolated and genetically sequenced, including Piromyces finnis, Neocallimastix californiae, Anaeromyces robustus, and Caecomyces churrovis. Transcriptomic and genomic characterization of these anaerobic fungi revealed that they harbor the largest collection of biomass-degrading enzymes of any sequenced fungus, and delineated the basic metabolic networks that govern lignocellulose hydrolysis within anaerobic fungi, RNA sequencing enabled the dynamics and mechanism associated with carbon catabolite repression to be delineated, which revealed how important enzyme groups are coordinated during breakdown. Through cluster analysis, a set of putative novel enzymes associated with lignocellulose breakdown was discovered, which also revealed a set of proteins critical to the formation of fungal cellulosomes (multi-enzyme complexes). Using this information, genetic transformation strategies to manipulate gut fungi were developed, which would endow them with enhanced functionality against a range of industrially relevant substrates. Collectively, this information will establish the molecular framework for anaerobic fungal hydrolysis, and will guide in the development of lignocellulosic biofuels.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Biological Systems Science Division
- Contributing Organization:
- DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI); PNNL Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0010352
- OSTI ID:
- 1485149
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-UCSB-0010352-1
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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