RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Metagenomic Discovery of Biomass-Degrading Genes and Genomes from Cow Rumen
JF Science
JO Science
FD American Association for the Advancement of Science
SP 463
OP 467
DO 10.1126/science.1200387
VO 331
IS 6016
A1 Hess, Matthias
A1 Sczyrba, Alexander
A1 Egan, Rob
A1 Kim, Tae-Wan
A1 Chokhawala, Harshal
A1 Schroth, Gary
A1 Luo, Shujun
A1 Clark, Douglas S.
A1 Chen, Feng
A1 Zhang, Tao
A1 Mackie, Roderick I.
A1 Pennacchio, Len A.
A1 Tringe, Susannah G.
A1 Visel, Axel
A1 Woyke, Tanja
A1 Wang, Zhong
A1 Rubin, Edward M.
YR 2011
UL http://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6016/463.abstract
AB The paucity of enzymes that efficiently deconstruct plant polysaccharides represents a major bottleneck for industrial-scale conversion of cellulosic biomass into biofuels. Cow rumen microbes specialize in degradation of cellulosic plant material, but most members of this complex community resist cultivation. To characterize biomass-degrading genes and genomes, we sequenced and analyzed 268 gigabases of metagenomic DNA from microbes adherent to plant fiber incubated in cow rumen. From these data, we identified 27,755 putative carbohydrate-active genes and expressed 90 candidate proteins, of which 57% were enzymatically active against cellulosic substrates. We also assembled 15 uncultured microbial genomes, which were validated by complementary methods including single-cell genome sequencing. These data sets provide a substantially expanded catalog of genes and genomes participating in the deconstruction of cellulosic biomass.