Although people rarely see the positives when their wooden houses begin to rot, scientists at the DOE JGI have found a silver lining in this destructive phenomenon. Through DNA sequencing and a comparative analysis with other fungi that DOE JGI has characterized, researchers have homed in on the mechanisms that the brown rot, Serpula lacrymans, employs to break down biomass and published the results of this enzyme discovery project online in Science Express on July 14, 2011.
While providing a novel angle for optimizing biomass pretreatment for biofuels, this study also offered a look into the role of brown rot in the development of the subarctic cool climate boreal forest – the largest terrestrial ecosystem on earth – and therefore the role of the fungus in the global carbon cycle.
Until now, industrial biofuels production has roughly mimicked the process by which white rot fungus breaks down plant cells, by targeting lignin to release the cellulose the starting material for fuels, pulp and paper, and chemicals.
This step has proven to be a considerable obstacle, as lignin is extremely difficult and costly (both in terms of energy input and toxic output) to break down. The research reported offers a new strategy for replicating the brown rott approach which circumvents the lignin to more efficiently isolate the cellulose.
Echoing the promise of these findings, study first author Dan Eastwood of Swansea University in Wales says that these findings make deciding what to do next “like being a child in a sweet shop: where do we start?”