DOE JGI Director Eddy Rubin highlights the genomics of plant-based biofuels in the jour...(mize fuel yields. Rubin also touche...)

Rubin also touches on the emerging technology of metagenomicscharacterizing, without the need for laboratory culture, the metabolic profile of organisms residing in an environmental samplefor the identification of enzymes suitable for industrial-scale biofuel production.

"Using this prospecting technique, we can survey the vast microbial biodiversity to gain a better picture of the metabolic potential of genes and how they can be enlisted for the enzymatic deconstruction of biomass and subsequent conversion to high energy value fuels."

As an example, Rubin cites an analysis of the hindgut contents of nature's own bioreactor, the termite, (published in Nature (450, 560-565 [22 November 2007]), which has yielded more than 500 genes related to the enzymatic deconstruction of cellulose and hemicellulose.

The Nature Review goes on to list the feedstock genomes, microbial "biomass degraders," and "fuel producers" completed or in progress. These include the first tree genome completedthat of the poplar Populus trichocarpa and other plants in the sequencing queue, such as soybean, switchgrass, sorghum, eucalyptus, cassava, and foxtail millet. In addition, Rubin points to oil-producing algae as an alternative source for biodiesel productionwith the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, as just one of several algal species that has been characterized for their ability to efficiently capture and convert sunlight into energy.

"Given the daunting magnitude of fossil fuel used for transportation, we will likely have to draw from several different sources to make an appreciable impact with cellulosic biofuels, all of which will in some significant way will be informed by genomics," says Rubin.

"Toward this end, rapid new sequencing methods and the large-scale genomics previously applied to sequencing the human genome are being exploited by bioenergy researchers to design next-generation biof
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