Department of Biological Engineering and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering of Ministry of Education, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.
Biotechnol Adv. 2012 Jul-Aug;30(4):920-9. doi: 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2012.01.021. Epub 2012 Jan 28.
Feedstock for biofuel synthesis is transitioning to lignocelluosic biomass to address criticism over competition between first generation biofuels and food production. As microbial catalysis is increasingly applied for the conversion of biomass to biofuels, increased import has been placed on the development of novel enzymes. With revolutionary advances in sequencer technology and metagenomic sequencing, mining enzymes from microbial communities for biofuel synthesis is becoming more and more practical. The present article highlights the latest research progress on the special characteristics of metagenomic sequencing, which has been a powerful tool for new enzyme discovery and gene functional analysis in the biomass energy field. Critical enzymes recently developed for the pretreatment and conversion of lignocellulosic materials are evaluated with respect to their activity and stability, with additional explorations into xylanase, laccase, amylase, chitinase, and lipolytic biocatalysts for other biomass feedstocks.
生物燃料合成的原料正在向木质纤维素生物质转变，以解决第一代生物燃料与粮食生产竞争的批评。随着微生物催化在将生物质转化为生物燃料方面的应用越来越多，对新型酶的开发的需求也在增加。随着测序技术和宏基因组测序的革命性进步，从微生物群落中挖掘用于生物燃料合成的酶变得越来越实际。本文重点介绍了宏基因组测序的最新研究进展，这是生物质能领域发现新酶和基因功能分析的有力工具。本文还评估了最近开发的用于预处理和转化木质纤维素材料的关键酶的活性和稳定性，并对木聚糖酶、漆酶、淀粉酶、几丁质酶和脂肪酶生物催化剂等其他生物质原料进行了进一步的探索。
