Cornell researcher finds how bacteria turns waste into biofuels

In New York state, to unravel how intricate waste biomass converts to biofuels, a Cornell professor studied the bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum to decipher its metabolism. Understanding the bacterium’s sugar-processing complexities may lead to improved biofuel yields.

She used an emerging biochemical approach, called metabolomics, to track different sugar carbon atoms inside the bacterial cells and learn why the cell factory does not efficiently convert all sugar carbons into biofuel. Specifically, she found that the bacterium incorporates pentose carbons (five-carbon sugars) in the metabolic network to make nucleotides (the building blocks of DNA), but it does not lead to making biofuel. But some hexose carbons (six-carbon sugars) are preferentially channeled through glycolysis, a metabolic pathway that connects to biofuel production.