TimmyHGene-Silencing and Biofuels
June 16th 2008 06:41
Gene-silencing techniques for bacteria could mean more-efficient biofuel production.
New research being conducted at Duke University could be used to produce more efficient biofuels. The study is attempting to develop a method of gene silencing to reversibly turn off harmful or unwanted genes in bacteria.
Gene silencing involves turning off antibiotic resistant genes. The process has had applications for environmental and industrial processes including water filtration. Gene silencing might make it possible to engineer bacteria that could produce more efficient biofuels.
So far scientists have used the gene silencing technique in order to study their functions for development and disease in small animals by a pathway called RNA interference. These work by shutting down genes involved in macular degeneration. Duke researcher and environmental engineer Claudia Gunsch has modified the old system of RNA and has begun tests this year on yeast using DNA to silence genes.
The most likely application of the Duke research will probably be in water filtration systems. In these systems, DNA would filter water right at the sink by being embedded in a gel through which the water flows. Currently, treatment of waterborne pathogens like bacteria is done using ultraviolet light and chlorination. The process is inherently difficult because bacteria’s ability to mutate and become resistant to treatment methods. Gunsch says that, “Chlorine-resistant bacteria are starting to show up.” Thus the advantage of gene-silencing filters is that they would change as pathogens do.
If Gunsch’s gene-silencing technique can be applied to bacteria there might be implications for the metabolic engineering of microbes to produce biofuels. In most cases, metabolic engineering is binary, meaning that researchers will either give a microbe to or take one from a gene. But in Gunsch’s system genes are suppressed and allowed to come out at different stages of development.
The Duke researchers face significant hurdles. As yet the process of gene silencing has been thoroughly unsuccessful using RNA methods. They will have to prove to a very sceptical scientific community that bacterial gene silencing works. “Our results seem to indicate that it's possible,” says Gunsch, but that doesn’t mean it will necessarily be successful.
New research being conducted at Duke University could be used to produce more efficient biofuels. The study is attempting to develop a method of gene silencing to reversibly turn off harmful or unwanted genes in bacteria.
Gene silencing involves turning off antibiotic resistant genes. The process has had applications for environmental and industrial processes including water filtration. Gene silencing might make it possible to engineer bacteria that could produce more efficient biofuels.
So far scientists have used the gene silencing technique in order to study their functions for development and disease in small animals by a pathway called RNA interference. These work by shutting down genes involved in macular degeneration. Duke researcher and environmental engineer Claudia Gunsch has modified the old system of RNA and has begun tests this year on yeast using DNA to silence genes.
The most likely application of the Duke research will probably be in water filtration systems. In these systems, DNA would filter water right at the sink by being embedded in a gel through which the water flows. Currently, treatment of waterborne pathogens like bacteria is done using ultraviolet light and chlorination. The process is inherently difficult because bacteria’s ability to mutate and become resistant to treatment methods. Gunsch says that, “Chlorine-resistant bacteria are starting to show up.” Thus the advantage of gene-silencing filters is that they would change as pathogens do.
If Gunsch’s gene-silencing technique can be applied to bacteria there might be implications for the metabolic engineering of microbes to produce biofuels. In most cases, metabolic engineering is binary, meaning that researchers will either give a microbe to or take one from a gene. But in Gunsch’s system genes are suppressed and allowed to come out at different stages of development.
The Duke researchers face significant hurdles. As yet the process of gene silencing has been thoroughly unsuccessful using RNA methods. They will have to prove to a very sceptical scientific community that bacterial gene silencing works. “Our results seem to indicate that it's possible,” says Gunsch, but that doesn’t mean it will necessarily be successful.
| 44 |
| Vote |
