EINNEWS, December 2—New research indicates that a familiar workhorse bacterium could be engineered to turn plant material into biofuels.
Writing in the journal Microbial Cell Factories, researchers from Canada’s Concordia University demonstrate how lactococcus lactis, the organism that turns milk into cheese, can be modified to convert plants into other chemicals, including biofuels.
What’s promising about this research, they stress, is how the scaffolding proteins of Lactococcus lactis appear to bond with multiple compounds. The next step will be to engineer larger more complex scaffolds that can encourage other bio-processes that can eventually result in commercially viable yields.
This study was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies.
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