There's a fungus among us, and it may hold the key for producing greener energy. Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have uncovered important clues about how the fungus Tricoderma reesei— known to friends simply as T. reesei— converts plant fibers into sugars used to produce ethanol.
Breaking down plant fibers has been part of the fungus' job description for decades. T. reesei earned notoriety during World War II when military leaders discovered it was responsible for the rapid deterioration of uniforms and canvas tents in the South Pacific.
Researcher Elwyn T. Reese and colleagues were the first to isolate the fungus. For his accomplishment, Reese was honored by having the fungus named after him.
Scientists now say the fungus with a taste for olive drab could help the world go green.
The hope for biofuels is that they will reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and help address global warming. But the process used to convert plants to ethanol is costly.
T. reesei could provide clues to making the conversion of corn, switchgrass and even cellulose-based municipal trash into ethanol more cheap and efficient.
The fungus creates enzymes it uses to break down plant fibers into the simplest form of sugar, known as monosaccharide. The fungus then feasts on the sugar as food.
Researchers led by LANL and the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute decoded the genetic sequence of the fungus in an attempt to discover why the fungus excelled at digesting plant cells.
The results were somewhat surprising: The fungus that can eat holes in tents contains fewer genes dedicated to the production of cellulose-eating enzymes than its counterparts.
"We were surprised by how few enzyme types it produces, which suggested to us that its protein secretion system is exceptionally efficient," LANL bioscientist Diego Martinez, the study's lead author, said in a lab news release.
The study found the fungus' efficiency at chomping on cellulose may be due to "clusters" of enzyme-producing genes, the researchers reported this month in Nature Biotechnology.
On an industrial scale, T. reesei could one day be employed to secrete enzymes that can be purified and added to a mixture of cellulose pulp and other materials to produce sugar. Ferment the sugar by yeast, and— voilá— ethanol.
