UMKC gets $1.2 million from JBEI to study mold for biofuel processing

In Missouri, the University of Missouri at Kansas City has scored a grant valued at $1.2 million from JBEI to study the potential to produce biofuel from a particular mold including gene sequencing. The species of mold to be studied is seen as a model for how microbes can break down complex molecules.

The grant will provide DNA genome sequencing for up to 600 strains of Neurospora crassa, a mold species used in classical genetics and also as a model for biofuel development.

The Department of Energy does not give out funds but the genome sequencing is valued at approximately $1.2 million. Collaborators on the grant include Blake Simmons and Scott Baker of the Joint BioEnergy Institute.

Neurospora crassa is a common plant-associated mold that grows along with sugar cane and other plants and which also grows on bread in open-air bakeries. It was first described as “pink bakery mold” during the Napoleonic wars. Classical genetic analysis was used to study Neurospora crassa beginning in the 1940s. Scientists chose this simple harmless mold for early genetic studies because it is easy to make mutants and do genetic crosses for study.

Kevin McCluskey, curator of the Fungal Genetics Stock Center at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a research professor at the School of Biological Sciences, and his collaborators will choose among the many mutant strains of Neurospora crassa in the Fungal Genetics Stock Center at UMKC and grow the sample in a test tube. Each sample is tested to make sure that it is pure and then the DNA is extracted with a simple bench-top process. The DNA is sent to the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, CA where DNA sequencing is carried out.

The Department of Energy provides preliminary analysis, consisting of comparing each DNA sequence against a well-curated “reference” genome DNA sequence. This reference is the same strain that was used to make many of the mutants, which simplifies the process.