Abstract
Over the past 7 years, the US Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research has funded three Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs). These centers have developed complementary and collaborative research portfolios that address the key technical and economic challenges in biofuel production from lignocellulosic biomass. All three centers have established a close, productive relationship with DOE’s Joint Genome Institute (JGI). This special issue of Bioenergy Research samples the breadth of basic science and engineering work required to underpin a diverse, sustainable, and robust biofuel industry. In this report, which was collaboratively produced by all three BRCs, we discuss the BRC contributions over their first 7 years to the development of renewable transportation fuels. We also highlight the BRC research published in the current issue and discuss technical challenges in light of recent progress.
Highlights
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users
Its spatial distribution, makes a significant impact on biomass deconstruction. Based on these discoveries in model plant systems, Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) has made significant progress in trait translation from model species to potential biofuel crop by engineering switchgrass plants with the lignin polymerization reduction and low ferulate traits previously described in Arabidopsis and rice, respectively [47, 48]
Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) scientists showed that, at least in E. coli, ethanol toxicity largely results from inhibition of Bcentral dogma^ processes of transcription and translation [86]
Summary
WinnowGen, Inc, Madison, WI 53717, USA 3 Present address: Midwestern BioAg, Madison, WI 53717, USA 4 Joint BioEnergy Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Emeryville, CA 94608, USA 5 BioEnergy Science Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak. In late 2007, the US Department of Energy (DOE), through the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), funded three Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs): (1) the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), led by Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, (2) the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), led by the University of Wisconsin—Madison in close partnership with Michigan State University, and (3) the Bioenergy Science Center (BESC), led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory Their mission, broadly stated, is to develop the scientific and engineering approaches, together with supporting technologies, which will underpin conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into liquid transportation fuels. Consistent with this focus on bioenergy-related Bflagship^ genomes, JGI developed additional tools and strategies of special interest to the BRCs including large-scale genotype-by-sequencing and exome capture strategies to characterize variation within a population. The key challenges identified by the centers during the first years include the following: enzymes and microbes that can tolerate these compounds, and BESC has utilized dilute acids and focused on minimal or hot water pretreatments
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