Thread Content
On May 7, scientists from the Danish company Novozymes and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States, among others, published an article in the online version of the journal Nature Biotechnology. In it, they stated that based on data obtained from the Trichoderma reesei genome, they had discovered that certain genes in this organism are capable of encoding an enzyme that can effectively break down plant cellulose into monosaccharides. These monosaccharides can serve as excellent starting materials for the production of bioethanol. Trichoderma reesei produces cellulases and hemicellulases that convert cellulose in biomass into monosaccharides. By sequencing Trichoderma reesei, scientists have predicted that its genome sequence consists of approximately 9,129 gene models. Surprisingly, compared to other fungi that can degrade plant cell walls, it has only a few genes encoding cellulases and hemicellulases. Most genes are used to encode the synthetic pathways for secondary metabolites that facilitate the survival of Trichoderma reesei in soil. Genomic analysis helps explain the mechanism behind its production of large amounts of cellulase and hemicellulase. By analyzing genomic data, scientists have proposed a roadmap for creating engineered Trichoderma strains that are better suited for industrial applications. Currently, corn, sugarcane, and other sources that can be easily broken down into sugars are used to produce fuel ethanol ； Wood and straw, which are rich in cellulose, cannot be used as raw materials for large-scale industrial production of bioethanol due to the lack of methods to efficiently convert cellulose into sugars. This has led to the conflict between energy and food, and especially in an era of growing global food shortages, it has become a bottleneck for the development of biofuels. Researchers say the information contained in the Trichoderma reesei genome helps us understand why this organism is capable of efficiently converting cellulose and secreting large amounts of proteases; by utilizing this information, it will become possible to produce biofuels and other compounds on a large scale using cellulose.