Posted on 01/29/2010 1:17:55 PM PST by Red Badger
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.
This is where the researchers undertook some crafty synthetic biology. E. coli usually produces fatty acids attached to a carrier protein; this is a sort of a built-in regulatory system that keeps the bacteria from biosynthesizing more fatty acids than it needs. By engineering a strain of E. coli that would biochemically strip fatty acids from carrier proteins, they created an E. coli that would create fatty acids beyond what it would normally churn out. Further, they engineered the E. coli to no longer burn fatty acids for its own energy, further boosting the surplus supply.
The team then set about making their E. coli strain produce enzymes called hemicellulases that allow it to ferment hemicellulose -- the complex sugar in cellulosic biomass that is the target of pretty much every biomass conversion scheme. Usually these kinds of enzymes -- which are not cheap to manufacture -- are introduced to cellulosic biomass during a costly processing stage. But the versatile E. coli strain developed by the DOE/LS9 team has the tools to ferment the sugars and convert them to surplus fatty acids all at once, producing raw biofuels directly from the biomass, no extra steps needed.
The cellulosic biomass doesn't have to come from plants that are consumed by humans or used in animal feedstocks, so the process doesn't add undue pressure on global food prices, and since the E. coli can ferment and convert the biomass to biofuel all at once the process could greatly improve the economics of biofuel production. All in all, it's not a bad PR move for a bacterium known most widely for causing food poisoning.
E. Coli Sure it causes food poisoning, but with a little synthetic biology it can turn biomass directly to biodiesel.
![](http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:R8sR7daexSBGmM:www.ted-kyte.com/3D/Pictures/Spark%2520Plug.jpg";)
Rest In Peace, old friend, your work is finished.....
If you want ON or OFF the DIESEL ”KnOcK” LIST just FReepmail me.....
This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days.....
KnOcK!...............
I’m thinking we’ll want to be REALLY careful about not letting this critter escape from the labs, and I have major doubts about how that could be managed when it’s being used commercially to produce diesel for shipment and use all over the place. I don’t see anything in the article about this bioengineering feat having included building in a trait that would prevent it from surviving in, and colonizing the digestive tracts of humans, pets, food animals, and wildlife. Having a diesel factory in one’s gut could be seriously problematic.
If it can be proven commercially viable (and licensed for general use), this could be a real game-changer.
You, too, can be turned into biodiesel........................
But just remember: Intelligent Design is not a scientific concept....
“Having a diesel factory in one’s gut could be seriously problematic.”
Naw! Ya just run a hose from your butt to your car’s fuel tank!
Let's be accurate. SOME strains of E. Coli can cause problems, others not. E.Coli is a normal constituent of the human GI tract. It's when the "bad" strains crowd out the "good" strains that there are problems.
Since it is designed to work on cellulose, survival in the human GI tract is VERY unlikely. Cows, maybe, humans, no.
I think it’s a really sh1tty idea!
Don’t drink the water and don’t drink the biodiesel....................
Huh? Unless you're eating a dangerously unhealthy diet, the human digestive tract is always loaded with cellulose. We can't digest it, but it's there, and these newfangled critters would thrive on it.
It would probably be engineered to be harmless in the wild.
Warthog a meatarian?
One would hope. But I can see how that would be hard to do. E. coli are fundamentally happy in the mammalian gut, and also fundamentally predisposed to swap genes with their E. coli cousins willy-nilly. When you throw a batch out there that has genes for both gobbling cellulose and synthesizing diesel, even if it also has a gene for not surviving in the mammalian gut (or for requiring some rare nutrient to survive), how long could it be before it shares it’s cellulose-gobbling, diesel synthesizing genes with some gut-loving cousin without sharing its can’t-survive-in-the-gut gene? Evolution is real and rapid, at least as far as bacteria are concerned.
"Soylent Diesel is people!"
When I took microbiology in college I smelled one petri dish filled with something that smelled just like my brother's feet. Maybe we can just get a group of teenage boys to stomp in the mess like they was grapes.
Pretty much, yes. Though I've probably got the healthiest prostate in existence, given all the tomatoes I eat. Love'em!
Tomatoes will shrink the prostate?
Might have to eat more.
I don't know about shrinking it. The lycopene in tomatoes is supposed to improve prostate health, and possibly prevent prostate cancer.
These are Proffesionals your taking about...
What could go wrong? (Sarc)
Excuse me I have to put a couple logs on the fire.. (This global warming sure goes thru a cord of wood fast)
W
Fuel is getting easier and easier to come by...
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