title: Protein engineering for bioenergy and biomass-based chemicals.
abstract: The conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals faces substantial challenges if it is to be done on a large scale, in a sustainable manner, and at reasonable cost. Some of these challenges can be addressed through protein engineering technologies, for example by improving biomass-processing enzymes or by manipulating the activities and substrate specificity of enzymes in metabolic pathways. Recent highlights include structure-guided chimera design to improve the properties of cellulases, the engineering of synthetic scaffold proteins to enhance metabolic flux, and the broadening of substrate specificity to co-opt metabolic pathways to the production of long-chain branched alcohols.
authors.affiliation: Computational and Systems Biology, Genome Institute of Singapore, 60 Biopolis St, Singapore 138672, Singapore. clarken@gis.a-star.edu.sg
authors.forename: Neil D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Clarke
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000096:biosynthesis; D056804:Biofuels; D018533:Biomass; D005227:Fatty Acids / Q000096:biosynthesis; D015202:Protein Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D011506:Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D056804:Biofuels; D005227:Fatty Acids; D011506:Proteins