Super-fermenting Fungus Genome Sequenced; To Be Harnessed For Improved Biofuels Production

P. stipitis is the most proficient microbial fermenter in nature of the five-carbon "wood sugar" xylose--abundant in hardwoods and agricultural leftovers, which represent a motherlode of bioenergy fodder.

"Increasing the capacity of P. stipitis to ferment xylose and using this knowledge for improving xylose metabolism in other microbes, such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, brewer's yeast, offers a strategy for improved production of cellulosic ethanol," said Eddy Rubin, DOE JGI Director. "In addition, this strategy could enhance the productivity and sustainability of agriculture and forestry by providing new outlets for agricultural and wood harvest residues."

Ligonocellulosic biomass, a complex of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, is derived from such plant-based "feedstocks" as agricultural waste, paper and pulp, wood chips, grasses, or trees such as poplar, recently sequenced by DOE JGI. Under current strategies for generating lignocellulosic ethanol, these forms of biomass require expensive and energy-intensive pretreatment with chemicals and/or heat to loosen up this complex. Enzymes are then employed to break down complex carbohydrate into sugars, such as glucose and xylose, which can then be fermented to produce ethanol. Additional energy is required for the distillation process to achieve a fuel-grade product. Now, the power of genomics is being directed to optimize this age-old process.

"The information embedded in the genome sequence of Pichia has helped us identify several gene targets to improve xylose metabolism," said Pichia paper lead author Thomas W. Jeffries of the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. "We are now engineering these genes to increase ethanol production." Jeffries said that yeast strains like Pichia have evolved to cope with the oxygen-limited environment rich in partially digested wood that is encountered in the gut of insects, from where the sequenced strain was originally isolated.

FPL has a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) in place with a New York City-based bioenergy company, Xethanol Corporation, which plans to integrate Dr. Jeffries' findings into its large-scale biofuels production processes.

Pichia joins white rot fungus in the growing portfolio of bioenergy-relevant fungus genomes sequenced by DOE JGI through its user programs and contributed freely to the worldwide scientific community.

The JGI effort was led by the Microbial Program Lead and Genomics Technologies Program head Paul Richardson and included Igor Grigoriev,  Andrea Aerts, Asaf Salamov, Erika Lindquist, Paramvir Dehal, Harris Shapiro, along with Jane Grimwood and Jeremy Schmutz of Stanford.

The DOE Joint Genome Institute, supported by the DOE Office of Science, unites the expertise of five national laboratories, Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Pacific Northwest, along with the Stanford Human Genome Center to advance genomics in support of the DOE mission related to clean energy generation and environmental characterization and clean-up. DOE JGI's Walnut Creek, Calif. Production Genomics Facility provides integrated high-throughput sequencing and computational analysis that enable systems-based scientific approaches to these challenges. Additional information about DOE JGI can be found at: http://www.jgi.doe.gov/.