12-03: Mining fungi for new biocatalysts: classical and post-genomic approaches

The global interest to shift to bio-based production of chemicals and fuel generates new challenges for researchers. While plant biomass has been a major substrate for many industrial processes, these have traditionally been largely aimed at food, feed, paper and textiles. Major players in these processes are polysaccharide degrading/modifying enzymes of microbial origin. These enzymes are also essential for the production of chemicals and fuels from plant biomass, but the way in which they are applied differs significantly from the classical application. For efficient chemical and/or fuel production from biomass, it is essential that a large percentage (preferably all) of the polymeric components is converted to their monomeric building blocks. In contrast, enzymes applied for food production are more commonly aimed at modifying the polysaccharides, while leaving them largely intact. It therefore became clear that the commercially available enzyme preparations are not effective enough for the new applications and new mixtures needed to be developed.

Fungi produce large numbers of plant biomass degrading/modifying enzymes and therefore have a high potential as source of novel enzymes. With the availability of a rapidly increasing number of fungal genomes new strategies have been developed for enzyme discovery, combining classical and post-genomic approaches. These will be discussed in the presentation.