Cellulase Discovery Via Chemical Complementation

生命过程化学（CLP）计划中的这一奖项支持哥伦比亚大学的Virginia康沃尔语教授开展基础研究，以发现用于生物燃料生产的纤维素酶。 生物质转化为可发酵糖以生产生物燃料的主要瓶颈之一是生物质降解所需的纤维素酶的高成本。 康沃尔语实验室已经设计了一个通用系统，用于将酵母的生长与酶活性相结合，该系统现在已被改造用于检测纤维素酶活性并促进新纤维素酶的鉴定。 该菌株目前正在进行优化，以便它可以用于从非常大的候选纤维素酶库中鉴定活性酶，并用于在微生物DNA中搜索新的纤维素酶。 围绕纤维素酶应用对实验室菌株的优化也将进一步推动该技术的发展，最终使其能够应用于检测生物燃料生产所需的其他水解酶和其他类型的酶。 这项研究有可能确定改进的纤维素酶，使生物质转化为生物燃料和其他商业产品更具成本效益，有助于减少我们对化石燃料的依赖。

This award in the Chemistry of Life Processes (CLP) program supports work by Professor Virginia Cornish at Columbia University to carry out fundamental studies on technology to discover cellulase enzymes for biofuel production. One of the major bottlenecks to cost-competitive conversion of biomass to fermentable sugars for biofuel production is the high cost of the cellulase enzymes needed for biomass degradation. The Cornish laboratory has engineered a general system for coupling the growth of yeast to enzyme activity, a system that has now been adapted to detect cellulase activity and facilitate the identification of new cellulases. This strain is now being optimized so that it can be used to identify active enzymes from very large pools of candidate cellulases and is being used to search the DNA of microorganisms for novel cellulase enzymes. The optimization of the laboratory's strains around the cellulase application will also further the technology more generally, which will ultimately allow it to be applied to the detection of other hydrolase enzymes needed for biofuel production and to other classes of enzymes. This research has the potential to identify improved cellulase enzymes that could make the conversion of biomass to biofuels and other commercial products more cost-efficient, helping to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels for energy.