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Efficiency Improvements in Biofuels Production

To overcome the difficulties of converting cellulosic biomass into high energy-content fuel, researchers have been seeking to improve various stages of the process. One big obstacle that stands in the way is that most enzymes are inefficient at breaking down biomass when in the presence of ionic liquids, solvents that have proven effective at treating the… [Read More]

Consortium Drives Genome Standards

As technology for sequencing genomes has become cheaper and more widely accessible, there is a greater urgency to institute a standardized, comprehensive language for researchers to share their findings. The Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC), an open-membership organization, is building a culture of collaboration to achieve greater efficiencies by spending less time combing through and interpreting inconsistent… [Read More]

GreenCut2: Algorithm to ID Plant Protein Functions

Researchers use genome sequencing to inform various cellular processes in land plants and algae, including the details of photosynthesis.  Despite the access to an increasing number of plant genomes (most of which have been generated by the DOE JGI), it remains difficult to correlate protein information with function, until now.  For example, identifying the role… [Read More]

First Finished Filamentous Fungus

An international consortium of scientists, including scientists from DOE JGI, have published the analysis for Mycosphaerella graminicola, the first filamentous fungus to be fully finished. Having the 39.7 million nucleotide genome available will enable researchers to learn more about the methods plant pathogens use to attack and damage crops, including those being considered for use… [Read More]

Tagging coral proteins adapting to global climate change

Over the past two decades, scientists have linked the decrease in the pH levels of the global oceans and the corresponding slowdown in coral growth to the increasing levels of carbon dioxide trapped in the atmosphere and which in turn are being absorbed in the ocean. As coral reefs are the primary habitat for several… [Read More]

How salt-loving archaea can assist with biofuel production

Halophilic bacteria thrive in environments with very high concentrations of salt such as the waters and sediments of salt lakes and saline soils. One of the reasons why the DOE JGI has been sequencing halophiles under the Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea (GEBA) project and the Community Sequencing Program is because they have salt-adapted… [Read More]

Fungal lessons for large-scale “green” chemical production

The chemical compound citric acid has been produced on a large-scale basis for decades with the help of the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger. The fungus also has enzymes that can be used to help break down plant cell walls for biofuel production, and it plays a key role in the carbon cycle. Aspergillus niger (Sue… [Read More]

Spikemoss genome aids biofuels researchers and botanists

The genome of a small plant is providing biofuels researchers with information that could influence the development of candidate biofuel feedstock plants and offering botanists long-awaited insights into plant evolution. Published online May 5, 2011 in Science Express, a team of researchers including DOE JGI’s Dan Rokhsar and Igor Grigoriev used a comparative genomics approach on… [Read More]

Poplar rust fungus in comparative genomics study

Rust plant pathogens make up a large fungal group which cannot survive on their own so they use crops as hosts, leading to reduced yields and potentially hindering efforts to grow biomass for fuel. To learn more about these, a 2006 Community Sequencing Program project generated the 101-million base pair genome of the poplar leaf… [Read More]

Comparative genomics of social amoebae

Found in soils worldwide, slime molds such as Dictyosteliumdiscoideumare perhaps best known by their behaviors in the presence or absence of food. When food is plentiful, the social amoeba behave as individuals, but when food is scarce, they come together to form multicellular “fruiting bodies” that look like a flower bud atop a single stalk… [Read More]