In Nature in December, a team of researchers at the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, Calif., and colleagues reported one such microbe’s draft genome — put together from DNA acquired from the semifrozen dirt in an Alaskan black spruce forest. The Alaskan microbe carries genes tuned to transform organic matter into methane, a finding that…
A toolkit for T. reesei
The availability of an organism’s genome sequence is useful for improving downstream applications such as large-scale biofuel production, but it is only the first step on this path. In the case of the fungus Trichoderma reesei, whose genome sequence was published by the DOE JGI in 2008, the cellulases in T. reesei have multiple industrial…
1000 Fungal Genomes project in The Daily Barometer
Joey Spatafora, an associate professor at Oregon State University, is leading an international project to sequence the genomes of a thousand fungi, a project aptly named 1000 fungal genomes. “It’s a really, really exciting time in fungal biology because we can sequence fungal genomes more easily than we could ten years ago,” Spatafora said. The Daily Barometer
Cotton project in the Delta Farm Press
An international consortium, led by Professor Andrew Paterson of the University of Georgia, has made publicly available the first ‘gold-standard’ genome sequence for cotton. Cotton was among the first plants studied at the molecular level, and the sequence obtained by Paterson and his team is the culmination of a 20-plus year effort in the analysis…
Cyanobacteria shed light on carboxysome complexity
Found in temperate and tropical oceans, Prochlorococcus cyanobacteria are considered the world’s most abundant photosynthetic organisms, able to convert sunlight to energy at depths of 200 meters. Despite their size, they are estimated to contribute up to half of the marine biological carbon sequestration. Prochlorococcusis a unicellular cyanobacterium that dominates the temperate and tropical oceans. …
Permafrost metagenome study on VOA Special English report
The researchers say one gram of the soil could contain thousands of different kinds of microbes and billions of cells. They say these organisms had never before been cultured in a laboratory. JANET JANSSON: “So more than ninety percent of those bacteria and other microorganisms in permafrost, we had no idea what they were.” Read…
Boosting knowledge of nitrogen-fixing bacteria
No plant is an island; interactions with complex microbial communities both above the ground and below the ground shape the plant’s growth rates and overall health. Understanding these plant-microbe interactions can lead to improvements in plant health and productivity and carbon sequestration, which can be applied toward DOE missions in bioenergy and biogeochemistry. Dark-field photo…
Tanja Woyke: Genome Technology 2011 Young Investigator
What inspired Tanja Woyke to pursue her current area of focus is also what makes it possible: single-cell genomic technology. “It allows one to sequence the genome of one individual microbial cell by amplifying its genome a billion-fold using a process called multiple displacement amplification,” she says. “I find this quite fascinating. Such an approach…
Engineering bacteria to produce biodiesel
Biodiesel production typically starts with oil-rich energy crops such as soybean, palm or rapeseed, which are harvested and then converted into fatty acids for use as fuel. The cost of expanding oilseed crop production is a limiting factor in allowing biodiesel to compete with fossil fuel sources. One alternative to using oilseed crops that many…
Spider mite genome project in CBC News
“They can change the repertoire [of genes] that they’re using in order to be able to feed on hosts that they would not be adapted to,” said Miodrag Grbic, a University of Western Ontario biologist, who led an international project to sequence the spider mite’s genome. The results were published this week in the journal…