Tag Archives: jbei

Less Toxic Metabolites, More Chemical Product

By Guest PostNovember 17, 2013Scienceamorphadiene, antimalarial drug artemisinin, berkeley lab, biomass, chemical product, e coli, energy crops, environmental condition, escherichia coli, fuzhong zhang, jay keasling, jbei, lignin, metabolite regulatory system, microbial growth, mrna stability, nature biotechnology, renewable fuels, ribosome binding, robert dahl, toxic metabolites

The first dynamic regulatory system that prevents the build-up of toxic metabolites in engineered microbes has been reported by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI). The JBEI researchers used their system to double the production in Escherichia coli (E. coli) of amorphadiene, a precursor to the premier antimalarial drug artemisinin.

Using genome-wide transcriptional analysis, the JBEI researchers identified native regions of DNA – called “promoters” – in E. coli that respond to toxic metabolites by promoting the expression of protective genes. They then developed a system based on these promoters for regulating artificial metabolic pathways engineered into the E.coli to enable the bacterium to produce amorphadiene. (more…)

New Advance in Biofuel Production

By Guest PostJune 2, 2013Environmentacid catalyst, advanced biofuels, alternative to gasoline, atmosphere, bioenergy, biofuel production, blake simmons, burning, carbon dioxide, cellulosic biomass, crystals, diesel, enzymes, fermentable sugars, fossil fuels, hanbin liu noppadon, hydrolyzing biomass polysaccharides, imidazolium chloride, ionic liquid, jbei, jet fuels, liquid fuels, manali sawant, new advance, ning sun, recycle, vitalie stavila

Joint BioEnergy Institute Researchers Develop Enzyme-free Ionic Liquid Pre-treatment

Advanced biofuels – liquid fuels synthesized from the sugars in cellulosic biomass – offer a clean, green and renewable alternative to gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. Bringing the costs of producing these advanced biofuels down to competitive levels with petrofuels, however, is a major challenge. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), a bioenergy research center led by Berkeley Lab, have taken another step towards meeting this challenge with the development of a new technique for pre-treating cellulosic biomass with ionic liquids – salts that are liquids rather than crystals at room temperature. This new technique requires none of the expensive enzymes used in previous ionic liquid pretreatments, and makes it easier to recover fuel sugars and recycle the ionic liquid. (more…)

Making Do with More: Joint BioEnergy Institute Researchers Engineer Plant Cell Walls to Boost Sugar Yields for Biofuels

By Guest PostApril 29, 2013Environmentabove ground organs, apfl, arabidopsis, artificial, berkeley lab, dominique loque, earth, Economy, fan yang, fuel sugars, good idea, henrik scheller, hydrolytic enzymes, jbei, joint bioenergy institute, key tissue, lignocellulosic biomass, ling zhang, model plant, organic material, polysaccharides, positive feedback loop, prajakta mitra, production of lignin, resource, sugars for biofuels, yves verhertbruggen

When blessed with a resource in overwhelming abundance it’s generally a good idea to make valuable use of that resource. Lignocellulosic biomass is the most abundant organic material on Earth. For thousands of years it has been used as animal feed, and for the past two centuries has been a staple of the paper industry. This abundant resource, however, could also supply the sugars needed to produce advanced biofuels that can supplement or replace fossil fuels, providing several key technical challenges are met. One of these challenges is finding ways to more cost-effectively extract those sugars. Major steps towards achieving this breakthrough are being taken by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI).

“Through the tools of synthetic biology, we have engineered healthy plants whose lignocellulosic biomass can more easily be broken down into simple sugars for biofuels,” says Dominique Loque, who directs the cell wall engineering program for JBEI’s Feedstocks Division. “Working with the model plant, Arabidopsis, as a demonstration tool, we have genetically manipulated secondary cell walls to reduce the production of lignin while increasing the yield of fuel sugars.” (more…)

A Better Route to Xylan

By Guest PostNovember 13, 2012Sciencealex schultink, aromatic compound, atmosphere, biofuel, biofuel generation, biomass, carbon, cell wall, cellulose, cellulosic biofuel, component, coumaric acid, dawn chiniquy, dwarf phenotype, earth, extraction, ferulic, gene, glycosyltransferases, gt61 enzymes, henrik scheller, jbei, lignin, material, metric tons, pamela ronald, plant, rice, saccharification, solar energy, store, sugar, vaishali sharma, xax1, xax1 mutant, xylan, xylan chain

Joint BioEnergy Institute Researchers Find New Access to Abundant Biomass for Advanced Biofuels

After cellulose, xylan is the most abundant biomass material on Earth, and therefore represents an enormous potential source of stored solar energy for the production of advance biofuels. A major roadblock, however, has been extracting xylan from plant cell walls. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have taken a significant step towards removing this roadblock by identifying a gene in rice plants whose suppression improves both the extraction of xylan and the overall release of the sugars needed to make biofuels.

The newly identified gene – dubbed XAX1 – acts to make xylan less extractable from plant cell walls. JBEI researchers, working with a mutant variety of rice plant – dubbed xax1 – in which the XAX1 gene has been “knocked-out” found that not only was xylan more extractable, but saccharification – the breakdown of carbohydrates into releasable sugars – also improved by better than 60-percent. Increased saccharification is key to more efficient production of advanced biofuels. (more…)

Latest JBEI Startup to Speed Up Biotech Industry

By Guest PostOctober 3, 2012Scienceautocad, berkeley lab, biofuels, biology, chemicals, cutting edge, design, DNA, dna manipulation, eduardo abeliuk, electrical engineering, expressing, inertia, iso27001, j5 software, jbei, majed abolfazli, medicine, metabolic pathway, mike fero, modern cloning, molecular biology, nathan hillson, organism, pharmchem, protocol, qb3, san francisco, Science, sequencing, splicing, stanford university, teselagen

TeselaGen’s DNA construction technology makes genetic engineering cheaper and faster.

Sequencing, splicing and expressing DNA may seem to be the quintessence of cutting-edge science—indeed DNA manipulation has revolutionized fields such as biofuels, chemicals and medicine. But in fact, the actual process can still be tedious and labor-intensive, something Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientist Nathan Hillson learned the hard way.

After struggling for two days to design a protocol to put together a genetic circuit with 10 pieces of DNA—using a spreadsheet as his primary tool—he was dismayed to discover that an outside company could have done the whole thing, including parts and labor, for lower cost than him ordering the oligonucleotides himself. “I learned two things: one, I never wanted to go through that process again, and two, it’s extremely important to do the cost-effectiveness calculation,” said Hillson, a biochemist who also directs the synthetic biology program at the Berkeley Lab-led Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI). “So that was the genesis of the j5 software. This is the perfect thing to teach a computer to do.” (more…)

Microbe That Can Handle Ionic Liquids

By Guest PostMay 17, 2012Environment, Scienceanthropogenic chemicals, biofuel production, biofuels, blake simmons, carbon, cellulosic biomass, enterobacter lignolyticus, fossil fuels, hannah wooa, industry, ionic liquids, jane khudyakov, jbei, kristen deangelis, michael thelen, microbe, microorganisms, model, patrik dhaeseleer, properties, scf1 strain, semicrystalline, sharon borglin, soil bacterium, sugar fermenting microbes, switchgrass, Technology, toxic effect, tropical rainforest microbe

New Find From Joint BioEnergy Institute Could Help Reduce Biofuel Production Costs

In the search for technology by which economically competitive biofuels can be produced from cellulosic biomass, the combination of sugar-fermenting microbes and ionic liquid solvents looks to be a winner save for one major problem: the ionic liquids used to make cellulosic biomass more digestible for microbes can also be toxic to them. A solution to this conundrum, however, may be in the offing.

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), a multi-institutional partnership led by Berkeley Lab, have identified a tropical rainforest microbe that can endure relatively high concentrations of an ionic liquid used to dissolve cellulosic biomass. The researchers have also determined how the microbe is able to do this, a discovery that holds broad implications beyond the production of advanced biofuels. (more…)

CAD for RNA

By Guest PostDecember 27, 2011Scienceaptazyme, biodegradable plastics, biofuels, biological systems, cad, cad platforms, cad type models, cells, computer assisted design, control systems, darmawi juminaga, diabetes, e coli, escherichia coli bacterium, genetic circuits, genetic expression, james carothers, jay keasling, jbei, jonathan goler, lignocellulosic biomass, microbes, microbial fuel production, molecules, parkinson, petrochemicals, ribozyme, rna devices, rna functions, rna molecules, simulations, synberc, synthetic biology, tools, university of california

*Joint BioEnergy Institute Researchers Develop CAD-Type Tools for Engineering RNA Control Systems*

The computer assisted design (CAD) tools that made it possible to fabricate integrated circuits with millions of transistors may soon be coming to the biological sciences. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have developed CAD-type models and simulations for RNA molecules that make it possible to engineer biological components or “RNA devices” for controlling genetic expression in microbes. This holds enormous potential for microbial-based sustainable production of advanced biofuels, biodegradable plastics, therapeutic drugs and a host of other goods now derived from petrochemicals. (more…)

E. Coli Bacteria Engineered to Eat Switchgrass and Make Transportation Fuels

By Guest PostDecember 4, 2011Environment, Scienceagricultural waste, anthe george, bacteria, berkeley lab, biofuel production, biofuels, blake simmons, bradley holmes, cellulolytic, cellulose, chemistry, christopher voigt, danielle tullman ercek, diesel, e coli, enzyme, eric steen, gasoline, green, gregory bokinsky, hemicellulolytic, hemicelluloses, ionic liquid, jay keasling, jbei, jeffrey dietrich, jet fuels, joint bioenergy institute, lignin, lignocellulosic biomass, lignocellulosic feedstocks, microbes, milestone, molten salt, pamela peralta yahya, renewable alternative, strains of escherichia coli bacteria, sugars, switchgrass biomass, synthesize, taek soon lee, woody material

*Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) Researchers Reach Milestone on the Road to Biofuels*

A milestone has been reached on the road to developing advanced biofuels that can replace gasoline, diesel and jet fuels with a domestically-produced clean, green, renewable alternative.

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) 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. What’s more, the microbes are able to do this without any help from enzyme additives. (more…)