Agave proves to be a low recalcitrant lignocellulosic feedstock for biofuels production on semi-arid lands

Biotechnology for Biofuels

Charles E Wyman¹  Michael G Hahn¹  Arthur J Ragauskas¹  Michael E Himmel¹  John M Yarbrough³  Ashutosh Mittal³  Xiadi Gao¹  Rajeev Kumar¹  Shi-You Ding¹  Marcus B Foston⁴  Sivakumar Pattathil¹  Hongjia Li² 

[1]BioEnergy Science Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1 Bethel Valley Rd, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA

[2]Current address: DuPont Industrial Biosciences, 925 Page Mill Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA

[3]National Renewable National Laboratory, 15013 Denver W Pkwy, Golden, CO 37831, USA

[4]Current address: Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering Department, Washington University in St. Louis, 1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA

关键词: Semi-arid land;    Low recalcitrance;    Feedstock;    Biofuels;    Agave;   

Others  :  792879
DOI  :  10.1186/1754-6834-7-50

 received in 2013-10-22, accepted in 2014-03-19,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Agave, which is well known for tequila and other liquor production in Mexico, has recently gained attention because of its attractive potential to launch sustainable bioenergy feedstock solutions for semi-arid and arid lands. It was previously found that agave cell walls contain low lignin and relatively diverse non-cellulosic polysaccharides, suggesting unique recalcitrant features when compared to conventional C₄ and C₃ plants.

Results

Here, we report sugar release data from fungal enzymatic hydrolysis of non-pretreated and hydrothermally pretreated biomass that shows agave to be much less recalcitrant to deconstruction than poplar or switchgrass. In fact, non-pretreated agave has a sugar release five to eight times greater than that of poplar wood and switchgrass . Meanwhile, state of the art techniques including glycome profiling, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), Simon’s Stain, confocal laser scanning microscopy and so forth, were applied to measure interactions of non-cellulosic wall components, cell wall hydrophilicity, and enzyme accessibility to identify key structural features that make agave cell walls less resistant to biological deconstruction when compared to poplar and switchgrass.

Conclusions

This study systematically evaluated the recalcitrant features of agave plants towards biofuels applications. The results show that not only does agave present great promise for feeding biorefineries on semi-arid and arid lands, but also show the value of studying agave’s low recalcitrance for developments in improving cellulosic energy crops.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Li et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

【 参考文献 】

• [1]Wyman CE: What is (and is not) vital to advancing cellulosic ethanol. Trends Biotechnol 2007, 25:153-157.
• [2]Lynd LR, Laser MS, Brandsby D, Dale BE, Davison B, Hamilton R, Himmel M, Keller M, McMillan JD, Sheehan J, Wyman CE: How biotech can transform biofuels. Nat Biotechnol 2008, 26:169-172.
• [3]Energy USD: U.S. Billion-Ton Update: Biomass Supply for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry. In Book U.S. Billion-Ton Update: Biomass Supply for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry. Oak Ridge: Progressive Management; 2011:227.
• [4]Somerville C, Youngs H, Taylor C, Davis SC, Long SP: Feedstocks for lignocellulosic biofuels. Science 2010, 329:790-792.
• [5]Garcia-Moya E, Romero-Manzanares A, Nobel PS: Highlights for agave productivity. GCB Bioenergy 2011, 3:4-14.
• [6]Nobel PS: Desert Wisdom/Agaves and Cacti: CO2, Water, Climate Change. New York: iUniverse; 2010.
• [7]Davis SC, Dohleman FG, Long SP: The global potential for Agave as a biofuel feedstock. GCB Bioenergy 2011, 3:68-78.
• [8]Li H, Foston MB, Kumar R, Samuel R, Gao X, Hu F, Ragauskas AJ, Wyman CE: Chemical composition and characterization of cellulose for Agave as a fast-growing, drought-tolerant biofuels feedstock. RSC Adv 2012, 2:4951-4958.
• [9]Albersheim P, Darvill A, Roberts K, Sederoff R, Staehelin A: Plant Cell Walls: From Chemistry to Biology. New York: Garland Science; 2010.
• [10]Ding S-Y, Liu Y-S, Zeng Y, Himmel ME, Baker JO, Bayer EA: How does plant cell wall nanoscale architecture correlate with enzymatic digestibility? Science 2012, 338:1055-1060.
• [11]Lynd LR, Wyman CE, Gerngross TU: Biocommodity engineering. Biotechnol Prog 1999, 15:777-793.
• [12]NÚÑEz HM, RodrÍGuez LF, Khanna M: Agave for tequila and biofuels: an economic assessment and potential opportunities. GCB Bioenergy 2011, 3:43-57.
• [13]Selig M, Weiss N, Ji Y: Enzymatic Saccharification of Lignocellulosic Biomass. Golden, CO, USA: National Renewable Energy Laboratory; 2008.
• [14]Pattathil S, Avci U, Miller JS, Hahn MG: Immunological approaches to plant cell wall and biomass characterization: glycome profiling. Methods Mol Biol 2012, 908:61-72.
• [15]Fu C, Mielenz JR, Xiao X, Ge Y, Hamilton CY, Rodriguez M, Chen F, Foston M, Ragauskas A, Bouton J, Dixon RA, Wang ZY: Genetic manipulation of lignin reduces recalcitrance and improves ethanol production from switchgrass. Proc Natl Acad Sci 2011, 108:3803-3808.
• [16]Pu Y, Kosa M, Kalluri U, Tuskan G, Ragauskas A: Challenges of the utilization of wood polymers: how can they be overcome? Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 2011, 91:1525-1536.
• [17]Chum HL, Johnson DK, Black SK, Overend RP: Pretreatment catalyst effects and the combined severity parameter. Appl Biochem Biotech 1990, 24–5:1-14.
• [18]Graham LE, Graham JM, Wilcox LM: Plant Biology. 2nd edition. San Francisco: Benjamin Cummings (Pearson); 2006.
• [19]Studer MH, DeMartini JD, Brethauer S, McKenzie HL, Wyman CE: Engineering of a high-throughput screening system to identify cellulosic biomass, pretreatments, and enzyme formulations that enhance sugar release. Biotechnol Bioeng 2010, 105:231-238.
• [20]Studer MH, Brethauer S, Demartini JD, McKenzie HL, Wyman CE: Co-hydrolysis of hydrothermal and dilute acid pretreated populus slurries to support development of a high-throughput pretreatment system. Biotechnol Biofuels 2011, 4:19. BioMed Central Full Text
• [21]DeMartini JD, Wyman CE: Composition and hydrothermal pretreatment and enzymatic saccharification performance of grasses and legumes from a mixed-species prairie. Biotechnol Biofuels 2011, 4:52. BioMed Central Full Text
• [22]Pattathil S, Avci U, Baldwin D, Swennes AG, McGill JA, Popper Z, Bootten T, Albert A, Davis RH, Chennareddy C, Dong R, O'Shea B, Rossi R, Leoff C, Freshour G, Narra R, O'Neil M, York WS, Hahn MG: A comprehensive toolkit of plant cell wall glycan-directed monoclonal antibodies. Plant Physiol 2010, 153:514-525.
• [23]DeMartini JD, Pattathil S, Avci U, Szekalski K, Mazumder K, Hahn MG, Wyman CE: Application of monoclonal antibodies to investigate plant cell wall deconstruction for biofuels production. Energy Environ Sci 2011, 4:4332-4339.
• [24]Chandra R, Ewanick S, Hsieh C, Saddler JN: The characterization of pretreated lignocellulosic substrates prior to enzymatic hydrolysis, part 1: a modified Simons’ staining technique. Biotechnol Progr 2008, 24:1178-1185.
• [25]Esteghlalian AR, Bilodeau M, Mansfield SD, Saddler JN: Do enzymatic hydrolyzability and Simons’ stain reflect the changes in the accessibility of lignocellulosic substrates to cellulase enzymes? Biotechnol Progr 2001, 17:1049-1054.
• [26]Elder T, Labbe N, Harper D, Rials T: Time domain-nuclear magnetic resonance study of chars from southern hardwoods. Biomass Bioenergy 2006, 30:855-862.
• [27]Felby C, Thygesen LG, Kristensen JB, Jorgensen H, Elder T: Cellulose-water interactions during enzymatic hydrolysis as studied by time domain NMR. Cellulose 2008, 15:703-710.