E coli engineered to eat switchgrass

US Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) researchers have engineered the first strains of Escherichia coli bacteria that can digest switchgrass biomass and synthesize its sugars into all three of those transportation fuels.

  Strains of E. coli bacteria were engineered to digest switchgrass biomass

What’s more, the microbes are able to do this without any help from enzyme additives. This is a major advancement in biofuel technology, “This work shows that we can reduce one of the most expensive parts of the biofuel production process, the addition of enzymes to depolymerise cellulose and hemicellulose into fermentable sugars,” says Jay Keasling, CEO of JBEI and leader of this research. Read more ...