TY - JOUR
T1 - Protein engineering in designing tailored enzymes and microorganisms for biofuels production
AU - Wen, Fei
AU - Nair, Nikhil U.
AU - Zhao, Huimin
N1 - Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the British Petroleum Energy Biosciences Institute and National Institutes of Health (GM077596). NN also acknowledges Drickamer Fellowship support from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois.
PY - 2009/8
Y1 - 2009/8
N2 - Lignocellulosic biofuels represent a sustainable, renewable, and the only foreseeable alternative energy source to transportation fossil fuels. However, the recalcitrant nature of lignocellulose poses technical hurdles to an economically viable biorefinery. Low enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency and low productivity, yield, and titer of biofuels are among the top cost contributors. Protein engineering has been used to improve the performance of lignocellulose-degrading enzymes, as well as proteins involved in biofuel synthesis pathways. Unlike its great success seen in other industrial applications, protein engineering has achieved only modest results in improving the lignocellulose-to-biofuels efficiency. This review will discuss the unique challenges that protein engineering faces in the process of converting lignocellulose to biofuels and how they are addressed by recent advances in this field.
AB - Lignocellulosic biofuels represent a sustainable, renewable, and the only foreseeable alternative energy source to transportation fossil fuels. However, the recalcitrant nature of lignocellulose poses technical hurdles to an economically viable biorefinery. Low enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency and low productivity, yield, and titer of biofuels are among the top cost contributors. Protein engineering has been used to improve the performance of lignocellulose-degrading enzymes, as well as proteins involved in biofuel synthesis pathways. Unlike its great success seen in other industrial applications, protein engineering has achieved only modest results in improving the lignocellulose-to-biofuels efficiency. This review will discuss the unique challenges that protein engineering faces in the process of converting lignocellulose to biofuels and how they are addressed by recent advances in this field.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.copbio.2009.07.001
DO - 10.1016/j.copbio.2009.07.001
M3 - Review article
C2 - 19660930
AN - SCOPUS:70349765870
SN - 0958-1669
VL - 20
SP - 412
EP - 419
JO - Current Opinion in Biotechnology
JF - Current Opinion in Biotechnology
IS - 4
ER -