Bioengineers create new substrate to study wood-decomposing enzyme

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The article discusses how bioengineers at Kobe University have developed a new substrate to study a wood-decomposing enzyme derived from fungi. This enzyme plays a crucial role in breaking down wood into its basic components, which can then be used to create various useful chemicals. The researchers' ability to characterize the speed and mechanism of this molecular machine is essential for improving its efficiency and industrial applications. The study could pave the way for more sustainable and efficient ways to utilize wood as a natural resource.

Kobe University bioengineer KOH Sangho was the first to be able to characterize the speed and mechanism of a molecular machine derived from fungi that allows to separate wood into its components. Having achieved this feat through the development of a new test feed, this characterization is key to improving the molecular machine and to applying it industrially to turn wood into a plethora of useful chemicals. Credit: Kobe University, modified from S. Koh et al. (2024), DOI 10.1016/j.bbrc.2024.150642

Researchers want to transform the natural and abundant resource wood into useful materials, and central to that is a molecular machine found in fungi that decomposes the complex raw material into its basic components.

A Kobe University researcher and his team were the first to come up with a test feed for the fungal that allows them to observe its close-to-natural action, opening the door to improving it and to putting it to industrial application. The bioengineers published their results

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