title: Isolation of a genetically accessible thermophilic xylan degrading bacterium from compost.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Due to the finite nature of global oil resources we are now faced with the challenge of finding renewable resources to produce fuels and chemicals in the future. Lactic acid has great potential as a precursor for the production of bioplastics alternatives to conventional plastics. Efficient lactic acid fermentation from non-food lignocellulosic substrates requires pretreatment and saccharification to generate fermentable sugars. A fermentation process that requires little to no enzyme additions, i.e. consolidated bioprocessing would be preferred and requires lactic acid-producing organisms that have cellulolytic and/or hemicellulolytic activity.
  
  
  RESULTS
  To obtain candidate production strains we have enriched and isolated facultative anaerobic (hemi) cellulolytic bacterial strains from compost samples. By selecting for growth on both cellulose and xylan, 94Geobacillusstrains were isolated. Subsequent screening for lactic acid production was carried out from C6 and C5 sugar fermentations and a selection of the best lactic acid producers was made. The denitrifyingGeobacillus thermodenitrificansT12 was selected for further research and was rendered genetically accessible. In fermentations on a mixture of glucose and xylose, a total of 20.3 g of lactic acid was produced with a yield of 0.94 g product/g sugar consumed. In addition, strain T12 is capable of direct conversion of beech wood xylan to mainly lactic acid in minimal media.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We have demonstrated thatG. thermodenitrificansT12 is genetically accessible and produces lactic acid as its main fermentation product on glucose, xylose and a mixture thereof. Strain T12 was additionally used for the direct conversion of xylan to lactic acid. The genetic accessibility of the T12 strain provides a solid basis for the development of this strain into a host for consolidated bioprocessing of biomass to lactic acid.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University, Stippeneng 4, 6708 WE Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Martinus J A
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Daas
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University, Stippeneng 4, 6708 WE Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Antonius H P
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: van de Weijer
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University, Stippeneng 4, 6708 WE Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Willem M
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: de Vos
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University, Stippeneng 4, 6708 WE Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van der Oost
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University, Stippeneng 4, 6708 WE Wageningen, The Netherlands ; Corbion, Arkselsedijk 46, 4206 AC Gorinchem, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: van Kranenburg
keywords: CMC; Compost; Electroporation; Fermentation; Geobacillus; Lactic acid; Thermophile; Xylan