Virgil
11-05-2008, 03:13 PM
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2008/2008-11-04-02.asp
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BOZEMAN, Montana, November 4, 2008 (ENS) - A unique fungus that makes diesel compounds directly from cellulose has been discovered living in trees in the Patagonian rainforest.
"These are the first organisms that have been found that make many of the ingredients of diesel," said Professor Gary Strobel from Montana State University. "This is a major discovery."
The discovery may offer an alternative to fossil fuels, said Strobel, MSU professor of plant sciences and plant pathology, who travels the world looking for exotic plants that may contain beneficial microbes. The find is even bigger, he said, than his 1993 discovery of fungus that contained the anticancer drug taxol.
Strobel's paper, published in the November issue of the journal "Microbiology," is based on his discovery of the unique properties of the Patagonian fungus, called Gliocladium roseum.
"Gliocladium roseum lives inside the Ulmo tree in the Patagonian rainforest," Strobel begins, telling the story of how he and his team learned that they had found an entirely new source of fuel.
"We were trying to discover totally novel fungi in this tree by exposing its tissues to the volatile antibiotics of the fungus Muscodor albus," Strobel recounts. "Quite unexpectedly, G. roseum grew in the presence of these gases when almost all other fungi were killed. It was also making volatile antibiotics."
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BOZEMAN, Montana, November 4, 2008 (ENS) - A unique fungus that makes diesel compounds directly from cellulose has been discovered living in trees in the Patagonian rainforest.
"These are the first organisms that have been found that make many of the ingredients of diesel," said Professor Gary Strobel from Montana State University. "This is a major discovery."
The discovery may offer an alternative to fossil fuels, said Strobel, MSU professor of plant sciences and plant pathology, who travels the world looking for exotic plants that may contain beneficial microbes. The find is even bigger, he said, than his 1993 discovery of fungus that contained the anticancer drug taxol.
Strobel's paper, published in the November issue of the journal "Microbiology," is based on his discovery of the unique properties of the Patagonian fungus, called Gliocladium roseum.
"Gliocladium roseum lives inside the Ulmo tree in the Patagonian rainforest," Strobel begins, telling the story of how he and his team learned that they had found an entirely new source of fuel.
"We were trying to discover totally novel fungi in this tree by exposing its tissues to the volatile antibiotics of the fungus Muscodor albus," Strobel recounts. "Quite unexpectedly, G. roseum grew in the presence of these gases when almost all other fungi were killed. It was also making volatile antibiotics."
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