Synthetic biology and biomass conversion: a match made in heaven?
To move our economy onto a sustainable basis, it is essential that we find a replacement for fossil carbon as a source of liquid fuels and chemical industry feedstocks. Lignocellulosic biomass, available in enormous quantities, is the only feasible replacement. Many micro-organisms are capable of rapid and efficient degradation of biomass, employing a battery of specialized enzymes, but do not produce useful products. Attempts to transfer biomass-degrading capability to industrially useful organisms by heterologous expression of one or a few biomass-degrading enzymes have met with limited success. It seems probable that an effective biomass-degradation system requires the synergistic action of a large number of enzymes, the individual and collective actions of which are poorly understood. By offering the ability to combine any number of transgenes in a modular, combinatorial way, synthetic biology offers a new approach to elucidating the synergistic action of combinations of biomass-degrading enzymes in vivo and may ultimately lead to a transferable biomass-degradation system. Also, synthetic biology offers the potential for assembly of novel product-formation pathways, as well as mechanisms for increased solvent tolerance. Thus, synthetic biology may finally lead to cheap and effective processes for conversion of biomass to useful products.
French
Christopher E
CE
School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK. C.French@ed.ac.uk
D001419:Bacteria / Q000378:metabolism; D001673:Biodegradation, Environmental; D018533:Biomass; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D002482:Cellulose / Q000737:chemistry; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D004463:Ecology; D004736:Energy-Generating Resources; D000431:Ethanol / Q000737:chemistry; D005285:Fermentation; D005818:Genetic Engineering / Q000379:methods; D007659:Ketones / Q000737:chemistry; D008829:Microbiology; D008957:Models, Genetic; D049490:Systems Biology / Q000379:methods*
D007659:Ketones; D000431:Ethanol; D002482:Cellulose