Enzymes from horse feces could hold secrets to streamlining biofuel production
Date: 10.11.2014
Stepping into unexplored territory in efforts to use corn stalks, grass and other non-food plants to make biofuels, scientists today described the discovery of a potential treasure-trove of candidate enzymes in fungi thriving in the feces and intestinal tracts of horses.
They reported on these enzymes — the key to economical production of biofuels from non-food plant material — at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). More than 14,000 scientists and others are expected for the meeting of ACS, the world’s largest scientific society, which continues here through Thursday.
Michelle A. O'Malley, Ph.D., explained that cellulose is the raw material for making biofuels from non-food plant materials. Cellulose, however, is sealed away inside a tough network of lignin within the cell walls of plants. To produce biofuels from these materials, lignin must be removed through an expensive pretreatment process. Then, a collection of enzymes breaks cellulose down into sugars. Finally, in a process much like production of beer or wine, those sugars become food for microbes to ferment into alcohol for fuel, ingredients for plastics and other materials.
“Nature has made it very difficult and expensive to access the cellulose in plants. Additionally, we need to find the best enzyme mixture to convert that cellulose into sugar,” O’Malley said. “We have discovered a fungus from the digestive tract of a horse that addresses both issues — it thrives on lignin-rich plants and converts these materials into sugars for the animal.
