Recent advances and future directions in plant and yeast engineering to improve lignocellulosic biofuel production

Abstract

Lignocellulosic biofuel has been globally recognized as a renewable energy source with environmental benefits while minimizing the competition between food and fuel supply. Although lignocellulose is a promising renewable feedstock for the sustainable production of transportation fuels, cost-effective conversion technologies are necessary to overcome its inherent recalcitrance that impedes the widespread utilization of lignocellulosic biofuels. Owing to the limited availability of cost-effective and less recalcitrant biomass, the major challenge toward biofuel commercialization includes the biochemical and genetic modification of lignocellulose in energy crops. The development of robust microbial conversion systems capable of converting a broad spectrum of carbon sources derived from biomass feedstocks into a variety of biofuels such as bioethanol, biodiesel, and advanced drop-in biofuels is also of interest in the field of biorefinery. To date, metabolic engineering and synthetic biology have made significant advances in improving the biofuel yield in feedstocks and microbial engineering. The objective of this review is to discuss the technological advances in engineering lignocellulosic biomass as an economically attractive feedstock and robust microbial platforms as a powerful biofuel producer. Finally, integrating engineering strategies and efforts in plant and microbial engineering provides future directions of an interdisciplinary approach to facilitate the commercialization of economically feasible lignocellulosic biofuels.