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The Potential of Corn Stalk Rot Fungi for Cellulosic Bioconversion in Fuel Ethanol Production
| CO-PI(s): | Lisa Vaillancourt |
| E. Patrick Heist |
Pikeville College
Our increasing dependence on a finite oil supply that is largely controlled by politically unstable regions of the world demands that we develop alternative fuel sources. The most immediately practical alternative fuel is ethanol, produced by fermentation of simple sugars derived from plant materials. Currently, the most economically feasible method for producing fuel ethanol uses starch from human and animal food sources, in particular corn. Development of protocols for conversion of cellulosic biomass, instead of valuable grain, will be essential if we are going to produce ethanol that will be cheap and plentiful enough to replace our current need for oil. The structure of cellulose is complex, and contemporary industrial techniques require expensive chemical and/or enzymatic treatments to release fermentable sugars. However, numerous microorganisms can directly convert cellulose to simple sugars using combinations of cell-wall degrading enzymes (CWDE). A cheap and abundant source of cellulosic biomass is corn "stover" (stalks, leaves, shucks, and cobs). Fungal plant pathogens produce combinations of CWDE that may be ideal for conversion of corn stover to simple sugars. Our team, with backgrounds in industrial ethanol fermentation processes and the molecular pathology of stalk rots, proposes to examine common stalk rot pathogens for their ability to convert the cellulose found in corn stover to fermentable sugars. The goal will be to optimize conditions for production of CWDE by these fungi in culture and in stover.
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