“Algae hold great potential as a source of renewable fuel due to their ability to produce refinery-compatible diesel and jet fuel precursors,” said Amanda Barry of Los Alamos’s Bioenergy and Biome Sciences group, lead author on the study, out today in the journal Algal Research. “Identifying algae strains that can use plant substrates, such as switchgrass and corn stover (the part of the plant left in a field after harvest) to grow faster and with more lipids suggests that waste plant material can be used to increase the productivity of algae during cultivation for biofuels or bioproducts. Pinpointing the unique enzymes and biochemical pathways algae use to break down complex plant lignocellulose increases our understanding of algal biology, and it opens up new avenues of future designer engineering to improve algal biofuel production strains,” she said. The current study presents the first example of algae degradation and utilization of untreated plant substrate, the putative genetic and molecular mechanisms behind this degradation, and identifies potential glycosyl hydrolases that may be involved in plant deconstruction. Publication: “Characterization of plant carbon substrate utilization by Auxenochlorella protothecoides” by Brian W. Vogler, Shawn R. Starkenburg, Nilusha Sudasinghe, Jenna Y.Schambach, Joseph A.Rollin, Sivakumar Pattathil and Amanda N.Barry, 17 July 2018, Algal Research.DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.algal.2018.07.001 Funding: This work was partly supported by a grant from the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Early Career Research Program at Los Alamos National Laboratory and funds provided by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office.
