Wood-digesting enzyme could boost biofuel production

It is claimed that the research, carried out by teams at the universities of Warwick and British Columbia, could make sustainable sources of biofuels, such as woody plants and the inedible parts of crops, more economically viable.

The researchers, who were also supported by EPSRC, have discovered an enzyme that is important in breaking down lignin, one of the components of the woody parts of plants. Lignin is important in making plants sturdy and rigid but, because it is difficult to break down, it makes extracting the energy-rich sugars used to produce bioethanol more difficult.

Fast-growing woody plants and the inedible by-products of crops could be valuable sources of biofuels but it is said to be difficult to extract enough sugar from them for the process to be economically viable.

Using an enzyme to break down lignin would allow more fuel to be produced from the same amount of plant mass.

The researchers identified the gene for breaking down lignin in a soil-living bacterium called Rhodococcus jostii. Although such enzymes have been found before in fungi, this is the first time that they have been identified in bacteria. The bacterium’s genome has already been sequenced, which means that it could be modified more easily to produce large amounts of the required enzyme.