{"id":10246,"date":"2016-10-19T09:31:26","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T09:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=10246"},"modified":"2016-10-19T09:31:26","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T09:31:26","slug":"super-yeast-has-the-power-to-improve-economics-of-biofuels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/super-yeast-has-the-power-to-improve-economics-of-biofuels\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Super yeast\u2019 has the power to improve economics of biofuels"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Great<\/a>
Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center researcher Trey Sato monitors yeast cultures in the lab. Sato and UW\u2013Madison colleagues have engineered yeast to feast on a previously unpalatable sugar, potentially improving the microorganism\u2019s ability to convert sugars to useful biofuels. JAMES RUNDE\/WISCONSIN ENERGY INSTITUTE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin\u00ad\u2013Madison and the\u00a0Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(GLBRC) have found a way to nearly double the efficiency with which a commonly used industrial yeast strain converts plant sugars to biofuel. The newly engineered \u201csuper yeast\u201d could boost the economics of making ethanol, specialty biofuels and bioproducts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though\u00a0Saccharomyces cerevisiae<\/em>\u00a0has been the baker\u2019s and brewer\u2019s yeast of choice for centuries, it poses a unique challenge to researchers using it to make biofuel from cellulosic biomass such as grasses, woods, or the nonfood portion of plants. The world-famous microbe is highly adept at converting a plant\u2019s glucose to biofuel but is otherwise a picky eater, ignoring the plant\u2019s xylose, a five-carbon sugar that can make up nearly half of all available plant sugars.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A culture plate with \u201csuper yeast,\u201d engineered to feast on a previously unpalatable sugar, potentially improving the microorganism\u2019s ability to convert sugars to useful biofuels. JAMES RUNDE\/WISCONSIN ENERGY INSTITUTE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cFor cellulosic biofuels to become economically feasible, microbes need to be able to convert all of a plant\u2019s sugars, including xylose, into fuel,\u201d saysTrey Sato<\/span><\/a>, the GLBRC study\u2019s lead researcher and a UW\u2013Madison associate scientist.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a study published Friday (Oct. 14, 2016) in the journal\u00a0PLOS Genetics<\/span><\/a><\/em>, Sato and his GLBRC collaborators describe the isolation of specific genetic mutations that allow\u00a0S. cerevisiae<\/em>\u00a0to convert xylose into ethanol, a finding that could transform xylose from a waste product into a source of fuel. To uncover these genetic mutations, the researchers had to untangle millions of years of evolution, teasing out what led\u00a0S. cerevisiae\u00a0<\/em>to become so selective in its eating habits in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n

First, Sato and colleagues gave the yeast a choice akin to eating carrots for dinner or nothing at all, surrounding\u00a0S. cerevisiae<\/em>\u00a0with xylose until it either reevaluated its distaste for xylose or died. It took 10 months and hundreds of generations of \u201cdirected evolution\u201d for Sato and his colleagues, including co-corresponding authors Robert Landick, a UW\u2013Madison professor of biochemistry, and Audrey Gasch, a UW\u2013 Madison professor of genetics, to create a strain of\u00a0S. cerevisiae<\/em>\u00a0that could ferment xylose.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once the researchers had isolated the super yeast they named GLBRCY128, they also needed to understand exactly how the evolution had occurred in order to replicate it. Gasch compared Y128\u2019s genome to the original strain, combing through the approximately 5,200 genes of each to find four gene mutations responsible for the adapted behavior. To verify their finding, the researchers manually deleted these mutations from the parent strain, producing the same result.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sato says this work could enable a wide variety of biofuels research going forward. With the technique for making Y128 published, researchers are free to make it themselves for the purposes of applying it to new biomass pretreatment technologies or to different plant materials. \u201cScientists won\u2019t need to adapt their research to the process that we\u2019re doing here,\u201d he says. \u201cThey can just take our technology and make their own strain.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Future research may also focus on the super yeast\u2019s potentially powerful role in creating specialty biofuels and bioproducts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to take this strain and make higher-order molecules that can be further converted into jet fuels or something like isobutanol, lipids or diesel fuel,\u201d says Sato. \u201cAnd if we know how to better metabolize carbon, including xylose, anybody in theory should be able to rewire or change metabolic pathways to produce a variety of biofuel products.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been the baker\u2019s and brewer\u2019s yeast of choice for centuries, it poses a unique challenge to researchers using it to make biofuel from cellulosic biomass such as grasses, woods, or the nonfood portion of plants. The world-famous microbe is highly adept at converting a plant\u2019s glucose to biofuel but is otherwise a picky eater, ignoring the plant\u2019s xylose, a five-carbon sugar that can make up nearly half of all available plant sugars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biology","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",500,372,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1-300x223.jpg",300,223,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",500,372,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",500,372,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",500,372,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",500,372,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",500,372,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",500,372,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",500,372,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",500,372,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",500,372,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",484,360,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",87,65,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",500,372,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",96,71,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3370-RGB-e1476462270606-500x372-1.jpg",150,112,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Biology<\/a> Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}