Objective
Every year large amounts of waste biomass are produced all over the world, especially from the agricultural and forestry activities. This waste can be transformed into fuel ethanol through bio-mediated conversion. Yeast, as good producers of ethanol, have played and will play a pivotal role in these conversions. The bottleneck of the controlled bio-mediated conversion is that so far only a part of the bio-degradable materials can be successfully converted by the micro-organisms employed. For decades Saccharomyces cerevisiae, baker's yeast, has been one of the best characterized organism from the genetics, post-genomics, biochemistry and physiology points of view and has also been tested for bio-fuel production. However this yeast has several limitations, like its inability to degrade certain carbon sources. On the other hand, laboratory studies have only been carried out so far on a limited number of yeast species that play an important part in nature and have the potential to be developed into industrial strains relevant to biotechnology. The aim of this project is to focus on less studied yeast groups such as Brettanomyces and Pichia, to understand their biodiversity, molecular biology and physiology and the applied potentials. Brettanomyces yeasts, which are apparently good ethanol producers and can grow on a variety of carbon sources, seem to be a good candidate for further studies. We will study these yeasts in the laboratory to understand their diversity, microbiological and physiological properties, genetics and molecular biology (isolation of collection of auxotrophic mutants, construction of transformation vectors, and optimization of transformation procedure) and bioinformatics tools will be developed so that they can be easily manipulated. The yeast P. stipitis converts xylose, the abundant sugar of lignocellulosic residues into ethanol. We aim to improve the characteristics (fermentation rate, maximal ethanol titer, productivity) of bio-ethanol production from xylose by P. stipitis, using modern approaches of metabolic engineering. A novel method for isolating mutants that accumulate elevated amounts of ethanol will be developed. Methods of untargeted insertion mutagenesis of P. stipitis which permit cloning of the corresponding regulatory genes will be developed. Characteristics of overall genome expression in ethanol overproducing mutants will be studied using DNA microarray experiments and real time PCR. Identified regulatory genes will be either overexpressed or disrupted, and fermentation characteristics of the corresponding strains will be studied. As a result, new information on genetic control of xylose fermentation will be accumulated and enable the construction of P. stipitis strains showing much more efficient ethanol production from xylose. Our final goal is to develop strains that can ferment a wider variety of carbon sources, are robust, exhibit enhanced ethanol production and tolerance at controlled growth conditions.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project has not yet been classified with EuroSciVoc.
Be the first one to suggest relevant scientific fields and help us improve our classification service
You need to log in or register to use this function
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Data not available
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Data not available
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Data not available
Coordinator
AACHEN
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.