A new dawn for industrial photosynthesis.

Several emerging technologies are aiming to meet renewable fuel standards, mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and provide viable alternatives to fossil fuels. Direct conversion of solar energy into fungible liquid fuel is a particularly attractive option, though conversion of that energy on an industrial scale depends on the efficiency of its capture and conversion. Large-scale programs have been undertaken in the recent past that used solar energy to grow innately oil-producing algae for biomass processing to biodiesel fuel. These efforts were ultimately deemed to be uneconomical because the costs of culturing, harvesting, and processing of algal biomass were not balanced by the process efficiencies for solar photon capture and conversion. This analysis addresses solar capture and conversion efficiencies and introduces a unique systems approach, enabled by advances in strain engineering, photobioreactor design, and a process that contradicts prejudicial opinions about the viability of industrial photosynthesis. We calculate efficiencies for this direct, continuous solar process based on common boundary conditions, empirical measurements and validated assumptions wherein genetically engineered cyanobacteria convert industrially sourced, high-concentration CO(2) into secreted, fungible hydrocarbon products in a continuous process. These innovations are projected to operate at areal productivities far exceeding those based on accumulation and refining of plant or algal biomass or on prior assumptions of photosynthetic productivity. This concept, currently enabled for production of ethanol and alkane diesel fuel molecules, and operating at pilot scale, establishes a new paradigm for high productivity manufacturing of nonfossil-derived fuels and chemicals.

Integrative biological analysis of the APOE*3-leiden transgenic mouse.

Integrative (or systems biology) is a new approach to analyzing biological entities as integrated systems of genetic, genomic, protein, metabolite, cellular, and pathway events that are in flux and interdependent. Here, we demonstrate the application of intregrative biological analysis to a mammalian disease model, the apolipoprotein E3-Leiden (APO*E3) transgenic mouse. Mice selected for the study were fed a normal chow diet and sacrificed at 9 weeks of age-conditions under which they develop only mild type I and II atherosclerotic lesions. Hepatic mRNA expression analysis showed a 25% decrease in APO A1 and a 43% increase in liver fatty acid binding protein expression between transgenic and wild type control mice, while there was no change in PPAR-alpha expression. On-line high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry quantitative profiling of tryptic digests of soluble liver proteins and liver lipids, coupled with principle component analysis, enabled rapid identification of early protein and metabolite markers of disease pathology. These included a 44% increase in L-FABP in transgenic animals compared to controls, as well as an increase in triglycerides and select bioactive lysophosphatidylcholine species. A correlation analysis of identified genes, proteins, and lipids was used to construct an interaction network. Taken together, these results indicate that integrative biology is a powerful tool for rapid identification of early markers and key components of pathophysiologic processes, and constitute the first application of this approach to a mammalian system.