Monday, May 4, 2009
5-42
Pipeline for Novel Biomass Degrading Enzymes
David Mead, Becky Hochstein, Julie Boyum, Norma Magallanes, Cate Brumm, Dhaval Desai, Sarah Vande Zande, Alan Bettermann, Eric Steinmetz, Ronald Godiska, Krishne Gowda, and Phil Brumm. Lucigen, 2120 W Greenview Dr, Middleton, WI 53562
Having the correct enzymes for biomass degradation, at a low enough price to be affordable, is a major goal of biofuels research. Currently, the biomass-degrading enzyme products that are commercially available are too expensive for practical use in the production of biofuels. The discovery of new high specific activity biomass active enzymes for evaluation in degradation studies is the focus of this research. An improved pipeline for enzyme discovery specific to the problems unique to this field was developed and validated, and a number of new carbohydrases were produced. Endo- and exo-cellulases and hemicellulases were discovered with high specific activity and broad specificity. We have over expressed, purified and characterized a number of unique cellulytic enzymes and will present data on representative examples. The next step is to develop a minimal set of biomass active enzymes that eliminates the bottleneck in cellulose degradation, in conjunction with research scientists at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center .