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Monday, May 5, 2008

Tricoderma reesei Fungus Breaks Down Cellulose, Could Boost Biofuels

Although plants and bacteria get most of the biofuel research dollars and media column inches, fungus, a kingdom of organisms that excels at breaking down fibrous cellulose, could provide some innovation for cheap and easy cellulosic biofuel production. Researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute have sequenced the genetic code of Tricoderma reesei, a fungal strain...

Novozymes, the Danish biotech giant, which controls 47 percent of the global enzyme market, collaborated on this study. Novozymes’ director of research activities in second-generation biofuels, Joel Cherry, called this achievement “a major step towards using renewable feedstocks for the production of fuels and chemicals.”

T. ressei’s enzyme-producing genes are believed to be clustered together, which researchers think could account for the fungus’ efficiency at enzyme production.

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