Illinois Data Bank Dataset Search Results
Results
published:
2026-01-22
Cao, Yanghui; Dietrich, Christopher H.; Dmitriev, Dmitry A.; Zou, Hongfen; Xue, Qingquan; Zhang, Yalin
(2026)
The following 5 files were used to reconstruct the phylogeny of the Membracoidea.
1. Taxon_sampling.csv: contains the sample IDs (1st column, used in the alignments) and the taxonomic information (2nd to 6th columns) for 269 samples.
2. concatenated_aa_.phy: a concatenated amino acid dataset with 52,987 amino acid positions. This dataset was used for the maximum likelihood analysis by IQ-TREE v1.6.12. Hyphens are used to represent gaps.
3. concatenated_nt.phy: a concatenated nucleotide dataset with all codon positions included (158,961 nucleotide positions). This dataset was used for the maximum likelihood analysis by IQ-TREE v1.6.12. Hyphens are used to represent gaps.
4. concatenated_12nt.phy: a concatenated nucleotide dataset with the third codon positions excluded (105,974 nucleotide positions). This dataset was used for the maximum likelihood analysis by IQ-TREE v1.6.12. Hyphens are used to represent gaps.
5. Individual_gene_alignment.zip: contains 427 FASTA files, each one represents the nucleotide alignment for a gene. Hyphens are used to represent gaps. These files were used to construct gene trees using IQ-TREE v1.6.12, followed by multispecies coalescent analysis using ASTRAL v 4.10.5.
keywords:
Auchenorrhyncha; evolution; phylogeny; timetree
published:
2026-01-22
Edmonds, Devin; Du, Jane; Stickley, Samuel; Sucre, Samuel
(2026)
This dataset contains data and R scripts used to analyze the trade of non-native pet amphibians in the United States by integrating online classified advertisements with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service import records. The data include records of amphibian advertisements, U.S. imports, taxonomic reference lists, and conservation status information. The dataset supports analyses identifying domestically produced species, species entering U.S. markets through unrecorded or unofficial trade pathways, and price differences associated with documented and undocumented trade. The dataset supports the analyses presented in an associated peer-reviewed publication in Biological Conservation.
keywords:
amphibian; biocommerce; biosecurity; conservation; LEMIS; pet trade; species laundering; wildlife trade
published:
2026-01-21
Suthers, Patrick; Maranas, Costas
(2026)
Growth-coupling product formation can facilitate strain stability by aligning industrial objectives with biological fitness. Organic acids make up many building block chemicals that can be produced from sugars obtainable from renewable biomass. Issatchenkia orientalis is a yeast strain tolerant to acidic conditions and is thus a promising host for industrial production of organic acids. Here, we use constraint-based methods to assess the potential of computationally designing growth-coupled production strains for I. orientalis that produce 22 different organic acids under aerobic or microaerobic conditions. We explore native and engineered pathways using glucose or xylose as the carbon substrates as proxy constituents of hydrolyzed biomass. We identified growth-coupled production strategies for 37 of the substrate-product pairs, with 15 pairs achieving production for any growth rate. We systematically assess the strain design solutions and categorize the underlying principles involved.
keywords:
Bioproducts; Modeling
published:
2025-09-18
Chen, Maosi; Parton, William J.; Hartman, Melannie D.; Del Grosso, Stephen J.; Smith, William K.; Knapp, Alan; Lutz, Susan; Derner, Justin; Tucker, Compton; Ojima, Dennis; Volesky, Jerry; Stephenson, Mitchell B.; Schacht, Walter H.; Gao, Wei
(2025)
Productivity throughout the North American Great Plains grasslands is generally considered to be water limited, with the strength of this limitation increasing as precipitation decreases. We hypothesize that cumulative actual evapotranspiration water loss (AET) from April to July is the precipitation‐related variable most correlated to aboveground net primary production (ANPP) in the U.S. Great Plains (GP). We tested this by evaluating the relationship of ANPP to AET, precipitation, and plant transpiration (Tr). We used multi‐year ANPP data from five sites ranging from semiarid grasslands in Colorado and Wyoming to mesic grasslands in Nebraska and Kansas, mean annual NRCS ANPP, and satellite‐derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data. Results from the five sites showed that cumulative April‐to‐July AET, precipitation, and Tr were well correlated (R2: 0.54–0.70) to annual changes in ANPP for all but the wettest site. AET and Tr were better correlated to annual changes in ANPP compared to precipitation for the drier sites, and precipitation in August and September had little impact on productivity in drier sites. April‐to‐July cumulative precipitation was best correlated (R2 = 0.63) with interannual variability in ANPP in the most mesic site, while AET and Tr were poorly correlated with ANPP at this site. Cumulative growing season (May‐to‐September) NDVI (iNDVI) was strongly correlated with annual ANPP at the five sites (R2 = 0.90). Using iNDVI as a surrogate for ANPP, we found that county‐level cumulative April–July AET was more strongly correlated to ANPP than precipitation for more than 80% of the GP counties, with precipitation tending to perform better in the eastern more mesic portion of the GP. Including the ratio of AET to potential evapotranspiration (PET) improved the correlation of AET to both iNDVI and mean county‐level NRCS ANPP. Accounting for how different precipitation‐related variables control ANPP (AET in drier portion, precipitation in wetter portion) provides opportunity to develop spatially explicit forecasting of ANPP across the GP for enhancing decision‐making by land managers and use of grassland ANPP for biofuels.
keywords:
Sustainability;Field Data;Modeling
published:
2026-01-12
Yan, Qiang; Cordell, William; Jindra, Michael; Pfleger, Brian
(2026)
Microbial lipid metabolism is an attractive route for producing oleochemicals. The predominant strategy centers on heterologous thioesterases to synthesize desired chain-length fatty acids. To convert acids to oleochemicals (e.g., fatty alcohols, ketones), the narrowed fatty acid pool needs to be reactivated as coenzyme A thioesters at cost of one ATP per reactivation – an expense that could be saved if the acyl-chain was directly transferred from ACP- to CoA-thioester. Here, we demonstrate such an alternative acyl-transferase strategy by heterologous expression of PhaG, an enzyme first identified in Pseudomonads, that transfers 3-hydroxy acyl-chains between acyl-carrier protein and coenzyme A thioester forms for creating polyhydroxyalkanoate monomers. We use it to create a pool of acyl-CoA’s that can be redirected to oleochemical products. Through bioprospecting, mutagenesis, and metabolic engineering, we develop three strains of Escherichia coli capable of producing over 1 g/L of medium-chain free fatty acids, fatty alcohols, and methyl ketones.
keywords:
Bioproducts; Metabolomics
published:
2025-10-22
Yan, Qiang; Jacobson, Tyler B.; Ye, Zhou; Cortes-Peña, Yoel R.; Bhagwat, Sarang; Hubbard, Susan; Cordell, William T.; Oleniczak, Rebecca E.; Gambacorta, Francesca V.; Rivera-Vasquez, Julio; Shusta, Eric V.; Amador-Noguez, Daniel; Guest, Jeremy; Pfleger, Brian
(2025)
Plants produce many high-value oleochemical molecules. While oil-crop agriculture is performed at industrial scales, suitable land is not available to meet global oleochemical demand. Worse, establishing new oil-crop farms often comes with the environmental cost of tropical deforestation. The field of metabolic engineering offers tools to transplant oleochemical metabolism into tractable hosts while simultaneously providing access to molecules produced by non-agricultural plants. Here, we evaluate strategies for rewiring metabolism in the oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica to synthesize a foreign lipid, 3-acetyl-1,2-diacyl-sn-glycerol (acTAG). Oils made up of acTAG have a reduced viscosity and melting point relative to traditional triacylglycerol oils making them attractive as low-grade diesels, lubricants, and emulsifiers. This manuscript describes a metabolic engineering study that established acTAG production at g/L scale, exploration of the impact of lipid bodies on acTAG titer, and a techno-economic analysis that establishes the performance benchmarks required for microbial acTAG production to be economically feasible.
keywords:
Conversion;Sustainability;Biomass Analytics;Lipidomics;Metabolomics
published:
2025-11-20
Yan, Qiang; Cordell, William; Breckner, Christian; Chen, Xuanqi; Jindra, Michael; Pfleger, Brian
(2025)
Medium-chain length methyl ketones are potential blending fuels due to their cetane numbers and low melting temperatures. Biomanufacturing offers the potential to produce these molecules from renewable resources such as lignocellulosic biomass. In this work, we designed and tested metabolic pathways in Escherichia coli to specifically produce 2-heptanone, 2-nonanone and 2-undecanone. We achieved substantial production of each ketone by introducing chain-length specific acyl-ACP thioesterases, blocking the β-oxidation cycle at an advantageous reaction, and introducing active β-ketoacyl-CoA thioesterases. Using a bioprospecting approach, we identified 15 homologs of E. coli β-ketoacyl-CoA thioesterase (FadM) and evaluated the in vivo activity of each against various chain length substrates. The FadM variant from Providencia sneebia produced the most 2-heptanone, 2-nonanone, and 2-undecanone, suggesting it has the highest activity on the corresponding β-ketoacyl-CoA substrates. We tested enzyme variants, including acyl-CoA oxidases, thiolases, and bi-functional 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydratases to maximize conversion of fatty acids to β-keto acyl-CoAs for 2-heptanone, 2-nonanone, and 2-undecanone production. In order to address the issue of product loss during fermentation, we applied a 20% (v/v) dodecane layer in the bioreactor and built an external water cooling condenser connecting to the bioreactor heat-transferring condenser coupling to the condenser. Using these modifications, we were able to generate up to 4.4 g/L total medium-chain length methyl ketones.
keywords:
Metabolomics; Metabolic Engineering
published:
2025-11-03
Woodruff, William; Deshavath, Narendra Naik; Susanto, Vionna; Rao, Christopher V.; Singh, Vijay
(2025)
Oleaginous yeasts are a promising candidate for the sustainable conversion of lignocellulosic feedstocks into fuels and chemicals, but their growth on these substrates can be inhibited as a result of upstream pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis conditions. Previous studies indicate a high citrate buffer concentration during hydrolysis inhibits downstream cell growth and ethanol fermentation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In this study, an engineered Rhodosporidium toruloides strain with enhanced lipid accumulation was grown on sorghum hydrolysate with high and low citrate buffer concentrations. Both hydrolysis conditions resulted in similar sugar recovery rates and concentrations. No significant differences in cell growth, sugar utilization rates, or lipid production rates were observed between the two citrate buffer conditions during batch fermentation of R. toruloides. Under fed-batch growth on low-citrate hydrolysate a lipid titer of 16.7 g/L was obtained. Citrate buffer was not found to inhibit growth or lipid production in this engineered R. toruloides strain, nor did reducing the citrate buffer concentration negatively affect sugar yields in the hydrolysate. As this process is scaled-up, $131 per ton of hydrothermally pretreated biomass can be saved by use of the lower citrate buffer concentration during enzymatic hydrolysis.
keywords:
Conversion;Hydrolysate;Lipidomics
published:
2025-10-15
York, Julia M.; Bhat, Shriram; Kim, Jinmu; Cardenas, Leyla; Cheng, Chi-Hing Christina
(2025)
This repository contains supplementary information, alternate genome assemblies, annotation, and predicted protein datasets for Notothenia coriiceps and Paranotothenia angustata genome assemblies. Primary assemblies, mitochondrial assemblies, RNA-Seq data, and raw read data can be found under NCBI Bioproject PRJNA1310647.
keywords:
notothenioid; Antarctic; fish; genome; DNA
published:
2025-10-16
Maitra, Shraddha; Long, Stephen P.; Singh, Vijay
(2025)
Transgenic bioenergy crops have shown the potential to produce vegetative oil by accumulating energy-rich triacylglyceride molecules that can be converted into biofuels (biodiesel and biojet). These transgenic crops cater to improved biofuel yield by providing lipids along with cellulosic sugars. Efficient bioprocessing technologies are needed to utilize these transgenic plants to their maximum potential. To this end, this study investigates a low- and high-severity chemical-free hydrothermal pretreatment of transgenic oilcane 1566 bagasse with in situ lipids to maximize the recovery of lipids for biodiesel and fermentable sugars for ethanol with minimal inhibitor generation. Hydrothermal pretreatment at 170°C recovered ∼25% of total lipids in the pretreatment liquor, leaving the remainder in bagasse residue for hexane recovery post fermentation. The recovery of lipids in pretreatment liquor remained constant beyond 170°C. Along with lipids, ∼35% w/w and ∼50% w/w fermentable sugars were recovered post saccharification from bagasse pretreated at 170°C and 210°C for 20 min, respectively. Hydrothermal pretreatment at 170°C for 20 min provided the optimum conditions for maximum recovery of lipids and cellulosic sugars that resulted in enhanced biofuel yield per unit biomass. High severity pretreatment increased the generation of inhibitors beyond the tolerance of fermentation microorganisms. In addition, the application of time-domain proton NMR spectroscopy was extended to bioprocessing. NMR technology facilitated the analysis of total lipids, the composition of fatty acids, and the characterization of free and bound lipids in untreated and pretreated oilcane 1566 bagasse subsequent to each step of biomass to biofuel conversion.
keywords:
Conversion;Feedstock Bioprocessing
published:
2025-11-03
Banerjee, Shivali; Dien, Bruce; Eilts, Kristen; Sacks, Erik; Singh, Vijay
(2025)
Chemical-free hydrothermal pretreatment of Miscanthus x giganteus (Mxg) at the lab scale using high liquid-to-solid ratios resulted in the recovery of anthocyanins and enhanced enzymatic digestibility of residual biomass. In this study, the process is scaled up by using a continuous hydrothermal pretreatment reactor operated at a low liquid-to-solid ratio (50 % w/w solids) as an important step towards commercialization. Anthocyanin yield was 70 % w/w at the pilot scale (50 kg of Mxg), compared to the 94 % w/w yield achieved at the lab scale (0.5 g of Mxg). The pretreated biomass was subsequently refined mechanically using a disc mill to increase the accessibility of cellulose by cellulases. Enzymatic saccharification of the pretreated and disc-milled residue yielded 238 g/L sugar concentration by operating in fed-batch mode at 50 % w/v solids content. Two strains of Rhodosporidium toruloides were evaluated for converting the hydrolysate sugars into microbial lipids, and strain Y-6987 had the highest lipid titer (11.0 g/L). Further, the residue left after enzymatic saccharification was determined to be enriched 1.7-fold in the lignin content. This lignin-rich residue has value as a feedstock for the production of sustainable aviation fuel precursors and other high-value lignin-based chemicals. Hence the proposed biorefinery based on Mxg creates an opportunity for generating revenue from multiple high-value products. As the demand for biofuels and biobased products is rising, the biorefinery products from Mxg would create a niche in the industrial sector.
keywords:
Conversion;Feedstock Production;Feedstock Bioprocessing;Hydrolysate;Lipidomics
published:
2025-11-03
Anaokar, Sanket; Liang, Yuanxue; Yu, Xiao-Hong; Cai, Yingqi; Cai, Yuanheng; Shanklin, John
(2025)
Triacylglycerols (TAG), accumulate within lipid droplets (LD), predominantly surrounded by OLEOSINs (OLE), that protect TAG from hydrolysis. We tested the hypothesis that identifying and removing degradation signals from OLE would promote its abundance, preventing TAG degradation and enhancing TAG accumulation. We tested whether mutating potential ubiquitin-conjugation sites in a previously reported improved Sesamum indicum OLE (SiO) variant, o3-3 Cys-OLE (SiCO herein), would stabilize it and increase its lipogenic potential. SiCOv1 was created by replacing all five lysines in SiCO with arginines. Separately, six cysteine residues within SiCO were deleted to create SiCOv2. SiCOv1 and SiCOv2 mutations were combined to create SiCOv3. Transient expression of SiCOv3 in Nicotiana benthamiana increased TAG by two-fold relative to SiCO. Constitutive expression of SiCOv3 or SiCOv5, containing the five predominant TAG-increasing mutations from SiCOv3, in Arabidopsis along with mouse DGAT2 (mD) increased TAG accumulation by 54% in leaves and 13% in seeds compared with control lines coexpressing SiCO and mD. Lipid synthesis rates increased, consistent with an increase in lipid sink strength that sequesters newly synthesized TAG, thereby relieving the constitutive BADC-dependent inhibition of ACCase reported for WT Arabidopsis. These OLE variants represent novel factors for potentially increasing TAG accumulation in a variety of oil crops.
keywords:
Feedstock Production;Genomics;Lipidomics
published:
2025-11-12
Fan, Xinxin; Khanna, Madhu; Lee, Yuanyao; Kent, Jeffrey; Shi, Rui; Guest, Jeremy; Lee, DoKyoung
(2025)
Cellulosic biomass-based sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) can be produced from various feedstocks. The breakeven price and carbon intensity of these feedstock-to-SAF pathways are likely to differ across feedstocks and across spatial locations due to differences in feedstock attributes, productivity, opportunity costs of land for feedstock production, soil carbon effects, and feedstock composition. We integrate feedstock to fuel supply chain economics and life-cycle carbon accounting using the same system boundary to quantify and compare the spatially varying greenhouse gas (GHG) intensities and costs of GHG abatement with SAFs derived from four feedstocks (switchgrass, miscanthus, energy sorghum, and corn stover) at 4 km resolution across the U.S. rainfed region. We show that the optimal feedstock for each location differs depending on whether the incentive is to lower breakeven price, carbon intensity, or cost of carbon abatement with biomass or to have high biomass production per unit land. The cost of abating GHG emissions with SAF ranges from $181 Mg−1 CO2e to more than $444 Mg−1 CO2e and is lowest with miscanthus in the Midwest, switchgrass in the south, and energy sorghum in a relatively small region in the Great Plains. While corn stover-based SAF has the lowest breakeven price per gallon, it has the highest cost of abatement due to its relatively high GHG intensity. Our findings imply that different types of policies, such as volumetric targets, tax credits, and low carbon fuel standards, will differ in the mix of feedstocks they incentivize and locations where they are produced in the U.S. rainfed region.
<b>Note: Column V in TableS7_DayCentSimulatedYield.csv should be labelled Corn Stover CoSo-NT-50% Max.</b>
keywords:
Sustainability;Geospatial;Modeling
published:
2025-09-30
Yun, Danim; Ayla, E. Zeynep; Bregante, Daniel T.; Flaherty, David W.
(2025)
Oxidative cleavage of carbon–carbon double bonds (C═C) in alkenes and fatty acids produces aldehydes and acids valued as chemical intermediates. Solid tungsten oxide catalysts are low cost, nontoxic, and selective for the oxidative cleavage of C═C bonds with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and are, therefore, a promising option for continuous processes. Despite the relevance of these materials, the elementary steps involved and their sensitivity to the form of W sites present on surfaces have not been described. Here, we combine in situ spectroscopy and rate measurements to identify significant steps in the reaction and the reactive species present on the catalysts and examine differences between the kinetics of this reaction on isolated W atoms grafted to alumina and on those exposed on crystalline WO3 nanoparticles. Raman spectroscopy shows that W–peroxo complexes (W–(η2-O2)) formed from H2O2 react with alkenes in a kinetically relevant step to produce epoxides, which undergo hydrolysis at protic surface sites. Subsequently, the CH3CN solvent deprotonates diols to form alpha-hydroxy ketones that react to form aldehydes and water following nucleophilic attack of H2O2. Turnover rates for oxidative cleavage, determined by in situ site titrations, on WOx–Al2O3 are 75% greater than those on WO3 at standard conditions. These differences reflect the activation enthalpies (ΔH‡) for the oxidative cleavage of 4-octene that are much lower than those for the isolated WOx sites (36 ± 3 and 60 ± 6 kJ·mol–1 for WOx–Al2O3 and WO3, respectively) and correlate strongly with the difference between the enthalpies of adsorption for epoxyoctane (ΔHads,epox), which resembles the transition state for epoxidation. The WOx–Al2O3 catalysts mediate oxidative cleavage of oleic acid with H2O2 following a mechanism comparable to that for the oxidative cleavage of 4-octene. The WO3 materials, however, form only the epoxide and do not cleave the C–C bond or produce aldehydes and acids. These differences reflect the distinct site requirements for these reaction pathways and indicate that acid sites required for diol formation are strongly inhibited by oleic acids and epoxides on WO3 whereas the Al2O3 support provides sites competent for this reaction and increase the yield of the oxidative cleavage products.
keywords:
Catalysis;Conversion
published:
2025-11-03
Kim, Min Soo; Choi, Dasol; Ha, Jihyo; Choi, Kyuhyeok; Yu, Jae-Hyuk; Dumesic, James; Huber, George
(2025)
This study shows a new route to produce potassium sorbate (KS) from triacetic acid lactone (TAL), which is a chemical platform that can be biologically synthesized from natural sources. Sorbic acid and its potassium salt (KS) are widely used as preservatives in foods and pharmaceuticals. Three steps are used to produce KS from TAL: 1) hydrogenation of TAL into 4-hydroxy-6-methyltetrahydro-2-pyrone (HMP), 2) dehydration of HMP to parasorbic acid (PSA), and 3) ring-opening and hydrolysis of PSA to KS. TAL can be fully hydrogenated over Ni/SiO2 to give near quantitative yields of HMP. A three-step reaction kinetics model was developed for dehydration of HMP into PSA. This model was used to show that the highest PSA yield occurs at low temperatures. An experimental PSA yield of 84.2% with respect to TAL was obtained which agreed with the prediction of the reaction kinetics model. KOH was used as a coreactant for the ring-opening hydrolysis of PSA to produce >99.9% yield of KS from PSA. Tetrahydrofuran (THF) was used to purify the TAL derived-KS (TAL-KS). The TAL-KS had a KS purity of 95.5%. The overall yield of TAL-KS with respect to TAL was calculated to be 77.3%. TAL-KS produced in this study had similar antimicrobial activities as commercial KS.
keywords:
Conversion;Catalysis;Modeling
published:
2025-11-12
Santiago-Martinez, Leoncio; Li, Mengting; Munoz-Briones, Paola; Vergara Zambrano, Javiera; Avraamidou, Styliani; Dumesic, James; Huber, George
(2025)
Herein we report the production of high-pressure (19.3 bar), carbon-negative hydrogen (H2) from glycerol with a purity of 98.2 mol% H2, 1.8 mol% light hydrocarbons (mainly methane), and 400 ppm of CO. Aqueous phase reforming (APR) of 10 wt% glycerol solution was studied with a series of NiPt alumina bimetallic catalysts supported on alumina. The Ni8Pt1-450 catalyst had the highest hydrogen selectivity (95.6%) and the lowest alkanes selectivity (3.7%) of the tested catalysts. The hydrogen selectivity decreased in the order of Ni8Pt1-450 > Ni8Pt1-260 > Ni1Pt1-260 > Pt-260. The CO2 was sequestered with CaO adsorbent which formed CaCO3. We measured the adsorption capacity of the CaO adsorbent at different temperatures. Life cycle analysis showed that the APR of glycerol coupled with CO2 capture has net negative CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions. The CO2 emissions are −9.9 kg CO2 eq./kg H2 and −50.1 kg CO2 eq./kg H2 when grid electricity and renewable electricity are used, respectively, and the CO2 is allocated respectively to the mass of products produced. The cost of this H2 (denoted as “green-emerald”) was estimated to be 2.4 USD per kg H2 when grid electricity is used and 2.7 USD per kg H2 when using renewable electricity. The cost of glycerol has the highest contribution of 1.71 USD per kg H2. Participation in the carbon credit markets can further decrease the price of the produced H2.
keywords:
Conversion;Catalysis
published:
2025-12-05
Zhao, Huimin; Litman, Zachary C.; Wang, Yajie; Hartwig, John F.
(2025)
Living organisms rely on simultaneous reactions catalysed by mutually compatible and selective enzymes to synthesize complex natural products and other metabolites. To combine the advantages of these biological systems with the reactivity of artificial chemical catalysts, chemists have devised sequential, concurrent, and cooperative chemoenzymatic reactions that combine enzymatic and artificial catalysts. Cooperative chemoenzymatic reactions consist of interconnected processes that generate products in yields and selectivities that cannot be obtained when the two reactions are carried out sequentially with their respective substrates. However, such reactions are difficult to develop because chemical and enzymatic catalysts generally operate in different media at different temperatures and can deactivate each other. Owing to these constraints, the vast majority of cooperative chemoenzymatic processes that have been reported over the past 30 years can be divided into just two categories: chemoenzymatic dynamic kinetic resolutions of racemic alcohols and amines, and enzymatic reactions requiring the simultaneous regeneration of a cofactor. New approaches to the development of chemoenzymatic reactions are needed to enable valuable chemical transformations beyond this scope. Here we report a class of cooperative chemoenzymatic reaction that combines photocatalysts that isomerize alkenes with ene-reductases that reduce carbon–carbon double bonds to generate valuable enantioenriched products. This method enables the stereoconvergent reduction of E/Z mixtures of alkenes or reduction of the unreactive stereoisomers of alkenes in yields and enantiomeric excesses that match those obtained from the reduction of the pure, more reactive isomers. The system affords a range of enantioenriched precursors to biologically active compounds. More generally, these results show that the compatibility between photocatalysts and enzymes enables chemoenzymatic processes beyond cofactor regeneration and provides a general strategy for converting stereoselective enzymatic reactions into stereoconvergent ones.
keywords:
Conversion;Catalysis
published:
2025-09-10
Singh, Vijay; Kurambhatti, Chinmay V.; Kumar, Deepak; Rausch, Kent; Tumbleson, M.E.
(2025)
Conversion of corn fiber to ethanol in the dry grind process could increase ethanol yields, reduce downstream processing costs and improve overall process profitability. This work investigates the in-situ conversion of corn fiber into ethanol (cellulase addition during simultaneous saccharification and fermentation) during dry grind process. Addition of 30 FPU/g fiber cellulase resulted in 4.6% increase in ethanol yield compared to the conventional process. Use of excess cellulase (120 FPU/g fiber) resulted in incomplete fermentation and lower ethanol yield compared to the conventional process. Multiple factors including high concentrations of ethanol and phenolic compounds were responsible for yeast stress and incomplete fermentation in excess cellulase experiments.
keywords:
Conversion;Feedstock Bioprocessing
published:
2025-11-20
Njuguna, Joyce N.; Clark, Lindsay; Lipka, Alexander; Anzoua, Kossonou; Bagmet, Larisa; Chebukin, Pavel; Dwiyanti, Maria S.; Dzyubenko, Elena; Dzyubenko, Nicolay; Ghimire, Bimal Kumar; Jin, Xiaoli; Johnson, Douglas A.; Nagano, Hironori; Peng, Junhua; Petersen, Karen Koefoed; Sabitov, Andrey; Seong, Eun Soo; Yamada, Toshihiko; Yoo, Ji Hye; Yu, Chang Yeon; Zhao, Hua; Long, Stephen; Sacks, Erik
(2025)
Accelerating biomass improvement is a major goal of miscanthus breeding. The development and implementation of genomic-enabled breeding tools, like marker-assisted selection (MAS) and genomic selection, has the potential to improve the efficiency of miscanthus breeding. The present study conducted genome-wide association (GWA) and genomic prediction of biomass yield and 14 yield-components traits in Miscanthus sacchariflorus. We evaluated a diversity panel with 590 accessions of M. sacchariflorus grown across four years in one subtropical and three temperate locations and genotyped with 268,109 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The GWA study identified a total of 835 significant SNPs and 674 candidate genes across all traits and locations. Of the significant SNPs identified, 280 were localized in mapped quantitative trait loci intervals and proximal to SNPs identified for similar traits in previously reported miscanthus studies, providing additional support for the importance of these genomic regions for biomass yield. Our study gave insights into the genetic basis for yield-component traits in M. sacchariflorus that may facilitate marker-assisted breeding for biomass yield. Genomic prediction accuracy for the yield-related traits ranged from 0.15 to 0.52 across all locations and genetic groups. Prediction accuracies within the six genetic groupings of M. sacchariflorus were limited due to low sample sizes. Nevertheless, the Korea/NE China/Russia (N = 237) genetic group had the highest prediction accuracy of all genetic groups (ranging 0.26–0.71), suggesting that with adequate sample sizes, there is strong potential for genomic selection within the genetic groupings of M. sacchariflorus. This study indicated that MAS and genomic prediction will likely be beneficial for conducting population-improvement of M. sacchariflorus.
keywords:
Feedstock Production;Biomass Analytics;Genomics
published:
2025-11-21
Banerjee, Shivali; Dien, Bruce; Singh, Vijay
(2025)
Lipids produced using oleaginous yeast cells are an emerging feedstock to manufacture commercially valuable oleochemicals ranging from pharmaceuticals to lipid-derived biofuels. Production of biofuels using oleaginous yeast is a multistep procedure that requires yeast cultivation and harvesting, lipid recovery, and conversion of the lipids to biofuels. The quantitative recovery of the total intracellular lipid from the yeast cells is a critical step during the development of a bioprocess. Their rigid cell walls often make them resistant to lysis. The existing methods include mechanical, chemical, biological and thermochemical lysis of yeast cell walls followed by solvent extraction. In this study, an aqueous thermal pretreatment was explored as a method for lysing the cell wall of the oleaginous yeast Rhodotorula toruloides for lipid recovery. Hydrothermal pretreatment for 60 min at 121 °C with a dry cell weight of 7% (w/v) in the yeast slurry led to a recovery of 84.6 ± 3.2% (w/w) of the total lipids when extracted with organic solvents. The conventional sonication and acid-assisted thermal cell lysis led to a lipid recovery yield of 99.8 ± 0.03% (w/w) and 109.5 ± 1.9% (w/w), respectively. The fatty acid profiles of the hydrothermally pretreated cells and freeze-dried control were similar, suggesting that the thermal lysis of the cells did not degrade the lipids. This work demonstrates that hydrothermal pretreatment of yeast cell slurry at 121 °C for 60 min is a robust and sustainable method for cell conditioning to extract intracellular microbial lipids for biofuel production and provides a baseline for further scale-up and process integration.
keywords:
Conversion;Hydrolysate;Lipidomics
published:
2025-09-09
Zhao, Huimin; Sweedler, Jonathan; van der Donk, Wilfred; Si, Tong; Tian, Qiqi; Min, Yuhao; Zhang, Linzixuan
(2025)
Most native producers of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) utilize N-terminal leader peptides to avoid potential cytotoxicity of mature products to the hosts. Unfortunately, the native machinery of leader peptide removal is often difficult to reconstitute in heterologous hosts. Here we devised a general method to produce bioactive lanthipeptides, a major class of RiPP molecules, in Escherichia coli colonies using synthetic biology principles, where leader peptide removal is programmed temporally by protease compartmentalization and inducible cell autolysis. We demonstrated the method for producing two lantibiotics, haloduracin and lacticin 481, and performed analog screening for haloduracin. This method enables facile, high throughput discovery, characterization, and engineering of RiPPs.
keywords:
Conversion;Genome Engineering;Genomics
published:
2025-10-01
Crawford, Reed; Wolff, Patrick; Pierce, Ellen; Braun de Torrez, Elizabeth; Pourshoushtari, Roxanne; O'Keefe, Joy
(2025)
This dataset contains the raw Florida bonneted bat echolocation calls recorded in southern Florida, USA from the years 2021 and 2022. This dataset also includes our artificial roost microclimate data (2021 only) and observations of bats recorded in our artificial roosts (2021 and 2022). Lastly, we include the R script required to analyze the Florida bonneted bat echolocation calls and the R script to produce the supplemental table and supplemental figure for our microclimate data.
keywords:
bats; roosts; acoustics
published:
2025-09-29
Singh, Vijay; Kurambhatti, Chinmay V.; Kumar, Deepak; Rausch, Kent; Tumbleson, M.E.
(2025)
Conversion of corn fiber to ethanol in the dry grind process can increase ethanol yields, improve coproduct quality and contribute to process sustainability. This work investigates the use of two physio-chemical pretreatments on corn fiber and effect of cellulase enzyme dosage to improve ethanol yields. Fiber separated after liquefaction of corn was pretreated using (1) hot water pretreatment (160°C for 5, 10 or 20 min); and (2) wet disk milling and converted to ethanol. The conversion efficiencies of hot water pretreated fiber were higher than untreated fiber, with highest increase in conversion (10.4%) achieved for 5-minute residence time at 160 °C. Disk milling was not effective in increasing conversion compared to other treatments. Hydrolysis and fermentation of untreated fiber with excess cellulase enzymes resulted in 33.3% higher conversion compared to untreated fiber.
Note: in “Table1_Treatments.csv”, NA = Not applicable.
keywords:
Conversion;Feedstock Bioprocessing
published:
2026-01-14
Tejeda-Lunn, Daniel; Trejo, Alayna; Kannan, Baskaran; Germon, Amandine; Leverett, Alistair; Altpeter, Fredy; Leakey, Andrew
(2026)
Datasheets relating to the article "Brachypodium SPEECHLESS2 promoter drives expression of a synthetic EPF to reduce stomatal density in sugarcane without pleiotropic effects" published in Plant Biotechnology Journal.
published:
2025-10-17
Banerjee, Shivali; Singh, Ramkrishna; Eilts, Kristen; Sacks, Erik J.; Singh, Vijay
(2025)
The increased awareness for eco-friendliness and sustainability has shifted the interest of stakeholders from synthetic colors to natural plant-based pigments. In this study, purple stemmed Miscanthus x giganteus was evaluated as a source of anthocyanins. Hydrothermal pretreatment was studied as a green, chemical-free process for recovering maximum anthocyanins in the pretreatment liquor. The highest recovery of 94.3 ± 1.5% w/w of the total anthocyanin concentration was obtained for a temperature and time combination of 170 °C and 10 min. The pretreatment also improved the enzymatic digestibility of the biomass and led to a 2.1-fold increase in the overall recovery of glucose (70.6 ± 0.5% w/w) at the end of 72 h. The sugar monomers obtained after the enzymatic hydrolysis of the pretreated biomass could be used for the production of biofuels or biochemicals in an integrated biorefinery based on purple-stemmed miscanthus. Overall, this study demonstrates that the clean pretreatment method developed could lead to an additional product stream (rich in anthocyanins) along with its effect in reducing the recalcitrance of miscanthus biomass.
keywords:
Conversion;Biomass Analytics;Hydrolysate