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Hindi Review Article
A Review on The Bioconversion of Lignin to Microbial Lipid with Oleaginous Rhodococcus opacus
Kristina M Mahan1, Rosemary K Le1, Joshua Yuan4and Arthur J Ragauskas1,2,3*1Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
2Biosciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oakridge, Tennessee, USA
3Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries, Center of Renewable Carbon, University of Tennessee, Institute of Agriculture, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
4Synthetic and Systems Biology Innovation Hub, Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Texas A&M University, 21230 TAMU, College Station, Texas 77843, USA
- *Corresponding Author:
- Ragauskas AJ
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Tel: +33611121352
E-mail: aragauskas@utk.edu
Received date: May 10, 2017; Accepted date: June 22, 2017; Published date: June 29, 2017
Citation: Mahan KM, Le RK, Yuan J, Ragauskas AJ (2017) A Review on The Bioconversion of Lignin to Microbial Lipid with Oleaginous Rhodococcus opacus. J Biotechnol Biomater 7:262. doi:10.4172/2155-952X.1000262
Copyright: © 2017 Mahan KM, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Abstract
Rhodococcus opacus produces intracellular lipids from the biodegradation of lignocellulosic biomass. These lipids can be used to produce biofuels that could potentially replace petroleum-derived chemicals. Current studies are focusing on deconstructing lignin through efficient and cost-effective pretreatment methods and improving microbial lipid titers. R. opacus can reach high levels of oleaginicity (>80%) when grown on glucose and other aromatic model compounds but intracellular lipid production is much lower on complex recalcitrant lignin substrates. This review will discuss recent advances in studying R. opacus lignin degradation by exploring different pretreatment methods, increasing lignin solubility, enriching for low molecular weight lignin compounds and laccase supplementation.
