Caldicellulosiruptor bescii – That lignin-loving, pretreatment-be-darned mighty biofuels microbe
In Georgia, a group of researchers led by the University of Georgia’s Mike Adams have found another thermophilic bacterium with amazing properties — this time, finding a bacterium that can, without pretreatment, break down biomass, including lignin, and release sugars for biofuels and chemicals production.
The group writes in Energy & Environmental Science, “the majority (85%) of insoluble switchgrass biomass that had not been previously chemically treated was degraded at 78 °C by the anaerobic bacterium Caldicellulosiruptor bescii. Remarkably, the glucose/xylose/lignin ratio and physical and spectroscopic properties of the remaining insoluble switchgrass were not significantly different than those of the untreated plant material. C. bescii is therefore able to solubilize lignin as well as the carbohydrates and, accordingly, lignin-derived aromatics were detected in the culture supernatants.”
Key take-aways?
No pretreatment required, and works equally well on lignin, hemicellulose and cellulose. Remarkable step – though early days, as we note a five-day treatment is required for this demonstration.
Your new best friend forever, Caldicellulosiruptor bescii?
It’s a species of thermophilic, anaerobic bacteria, originally isolated from a geothermally heated freshwater pool in the Valley of Geysers on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia in 1990. If you’ If you thought “that’s Anaerocellum thermophilum” – you get a gold star, but the bacterium was reclassified three years ago by a team including the afore-mentioned Mike Adams.
Adams’ lab was last highlighted in the Digest earlier this year was an $2.4 million ARPA-E projects uniting teams from the University of Georgia and North Carolina State, “Liquid Fuel from Heat-Loving Microorganisms,” that engineered Pyrococcus furiosus to make 3-hydroxypropionic acid using hydrogen gas, and CO2.
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