Bilateral BBSRC-FAPESP - New approaches towards improved functionality of saccharolytic enzymes from fungi

这个项目提案将来自英国和巴西的科学家聚集在一个与生物燃料生产有关的合作项目中，他们各自带来了专业知识。在世界范围内，有必要找到现实的化石燃料替代品，包括英国和巴西在内的许多国家都制定了可再生能源供应的目标。这些目标具有挑战性，但从农业废物中生产生物燃料的目标是为许多国家的能源需求做出贡献。巴西在从酵母发酵糖到乙醇（“生物乙醇”）的乙醇生产方面处于世界领先地位。这是第一代过程的一个例子，但这在英国是不现实的，因为英国种植作物是为了食用，没有能力种植专门用于生物燃料的作物。因此，第二代生物燃料被设计为使用非粮食作物，实现这一目标的一种方法是使用农业废料。这些废物不含易发酵的糖，但它们含有大量植物细胞壁材料，主要由纤维素和其他聚合物组成。在第二代生物燃料的生产中，这些聚合物首先被酶降解为糖，然后糖被酵母转化为乙醇。这个酶步骤使用真菌（霉菌）中的酶来自然完成这项工作。需要了解模具的自然能力，以便将其转移到成功的工业过程中。我们之前的研究表明，不同的真菌以不同的方式处理降解聚合物的问题，本项目旨在向这些真菌学习，以优化这一过程。

This project proposal brings together scientists from the UK and Brazil in a collaborative project, relating to the production of biofuels, where they each bring expertise. There is a need to find realistic alternatives to the use of fossil fuels worldwide and there are targets for the amount of energy to be provided from renewables in many countries including the UK and Brazil. Those targets are challenging but the production of biofuels from agricultural wastes is targeted to make a contribution to the energy needs of many countries. Brazil leads the world in the production of ethanol from the fermentation of sugar by yeast to ethanol ('bioethanol'). That is an example of a first-generation process but that is not realistic in the UK where crops are grown for food and there is no capacity to grow crops specifically for biofuels. Therefore, second generation biofuels are designed to use non-food crops and one way of achieving that is to use agricultural waste materials. Those wastes do not contain easily-fermented sugars but they do contain a lot of plant cell wall material that is comprised mainly of cellulose and other polymers. In the production of second generation biofuels, these polymers are first degraded by enzymes to sugars and the sugars are then converted to ethanol by yeast. That enzyme step uses enzymes from fungi (moulds) that do that job naturally. That natural capacity of moulds needs to be understood so that it can then be transferred to a successful industrial process. Our previous research has shown that different fungi approach the problem of degrading polymers in different ways and this project aims to learn from those fungi in order to optimise the process.