Lignin is a major polymer in the secondary plant cell wall and composed of hydrophobic interlinked hydroxyphenylpropanoid units. The presence of lignin hampers conversion of plant biomass into biofuels; plants with modified lignin are therefore being investigated for increased digestibility. The...

Seed oil is important not only for human and animal nutrition, but also for various industrial applications. Numerous genetic engineering strategies have been attempted to increase the oil content per seed, but few of these strategies have involved manipulating the transporters. Pyruvate is a major ...

Triacylglycerol (TAG) is an energy-rich reserve in plant seeds that is composed of glycerol esters with three fatty acids. Since TAG can be used as a feedstock for the production of biofuels and bio-chemicals, producing TAGs in vegetative tissue is an alternative way of meeting the increasing...

Developing new feedstocks for the efficient production of biochemicals and biofuels will be a critical challenge as we diversify away from petrochemicals. One possible opportunity is the utilization of sulfide-based minerals in the Earth's crust. Non-photosynthetic chemolithoautotrophic bacteria...

New strategies for metabolic engineering of extremely thermophilic microorganisms to produce bio-based fuels and chemicals could leverage pathways and physiological features resident in extreme thermophiles for improved outcomes. Furthermore, very recent advances in genetic tools for these...

To overcome the recalcitrance of lignocellulose structures that hinders the robust bioconversion of biomass for bioethanol and lignin-coproduct productions, efficient approaches are needed to remove hemicelluloses. In this study, a microwave-induced hydrothermal pretreatment of corncob was...

Sugar-rich food waste is a sustainable feedstock that can be converted into ethanol without an expensive thermochemical pretreatment that is commonly used in first and second generation processes. In this manuscript we have outlined the pie waste conversion to ethanol through a two-step process,...

Sweet sorghum is a promising target for biofuel production. It is a C4 crop with low input requirements and accumulates high levels of sugars in its stalks. However, large-scale planting on marginal lands would require improved varieties with optimized biofuel-related traits and tolerance to biotic ...

Background: Cyanobacteria are considered potential photosynthetic microbial cell factories for biofuel and biochemical production. Ethylene, one of the most important organic chemicals, has been successfully synthesized in cyanobacteria by introducing an exogenous ethylene-forming enzyme (Efe)....

Background: Cyanobacterial mutants engineered for production of free fatty acids (FFAs) secrete the products to the medium and hence are thought to be useful for biofuel production. The dAS1T mutant constructed from Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 has indeed a large capacity of FFA production,...