It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. In this case, the “job” is the breakdown of lignin, the structural molecule that gives plants strength and rigidity. One of the most abundant terrestrial polymers (large molecules made of repeating subunits called monomers) on Earth, lignin surrounds valuable plant fibers and other molecules that could be converted into biofuels and other commodity chemicals – if we could only get past that rigid plant cell wall.
The Green Secrets of Goat Poop
Microbes found in the goat gut microbiome could help humans convert plant material into valuable, eco-friendly commodities
Converting the tough fibers and complex sugars in plants into biofuels and other products could be humanity’s ticket to smarter materials, better medicines, and a petroleum-free, sustainable future. But harnessing the chemical commodities stored in these molecules is no simple task. We may take it for granted because our bodies seem to do it automatically, but in reality, every time we eat a vegetable or leafy green, the microbial communities living inside of us are performing an elaborate disassembly line of coordinated chemical reactions to break the plant matter into simple sugars that human cells can use.
DOE JGI User Facility Partnership Yields Gut Fungi Study
“Nature has engineered these fungi to have what seems to be the world’s largest repertoire of enzymes that break down biomass.”
Published online February 18, 2016, in Science, a team from UC Santa Barbara drew upon two U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (SC) User Facilities: the Environmental Molecular Science Laboratory at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the DOE Joint Genome Institute to show that anaerobic fungi found in the guts of goats, horses and sheep are just as capable of breaking down plant biomass as are industry-developed fungi, potentially leading to cheaper biofuels and bio-based products. The team’s study is the first to result from a partnership between the two national user facilities called Facilities Integrating Collaborations for User Science or FICUS. The partnership allows scientists around the world to draw on capabilities at both SC user facilities to get a more complete understanding of fundamental scientific questions. Read more about the FICUS project on the JGI website.
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