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Molecular Biological Approaches for the Improvement of Biofuels Production
Published in Debabrata Das, Jhansi L. Varanasi, Fundamentals of Biofuel Production Processes, 2019
Debabrata Das, Jhansi L. Varanasi
Most of the current fermentative technologies are dependent upon the soluble sugar content of biomass (such as sugarcane) that is readily accessible to the microorganisms. By applying suitable metabolic engineering approaches, the amount of soluble sugars of traditional feedstocks can be enhanced. By redirecting the carbon fixation pathway (Calvin cycle) in autotrophic organisms (such as green plants, algae, and cyanobacteria), the photosynthetic capacity can be improved, which in turn increases the sugars productivity (Shih et al. 2016). The key enzyme that plays a vital role in carbon fixation is RuBisCO. The heterologous expression of this enzyme from cyanobacteria to higher crop plants has shown improvement in carbon fixation capabilities in the host organisms (Shih et al. 2016). Alternatively, the metabolic pathway can be channeled towards production of sucrose isomers or other fermentation precursors that do not inhibit the photosynthesis process. It was shown that by altering the cell wall composition with an increase in C6 sugars rather than C5 sugars the ethanol production could be enhanced from maize as feedstock (Torney et al. 2007). This enhancement is because the C6 sugars are more easily fermentable compared to C5 sugars. Some of the strategies used for improving sugar yields are listed in Table 5.1.
Endangered Salares: micro-disasters in Northern Chile
Published in Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society, 2021
Cristóbal Bonelli, Cristina Dorador
Despite the apparent invisibility of the microorganisms, and although they may need microbiologists to make them visible, they can be visually detected in certain environments. For example, patchy green areas in Salar de Huasco are a congregation of microalgae and cyanobacteria. They are green because they contain a pigment called chlorophyll, crucial for photosynthesis.18 In oceans, chlorophyll is part of organisms such as cyanobacteria, micro and macro-algae. These organisms are responsible for 40% of carbon fixation on Earth.