Source: Kathrin Schrick, 785-532-6360, kschrick@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Stephanie Jacques, 785-532-0101, sjaques@k-state.edu

Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011

LEARNING SECRETS OF WORLD'S MOST COMMON ORGANIC COMPOUND DRIVING RESEARCH FOR BIOFUELS

MANHATTAN -- Preliminary research at Kansas State University may make a difference one day at the gas pump.

Many scientists believe that 1xbet online games login , the most common organic compound on earth, has enough energy to be the next source for biofuels -- if a procedure to effectively break it down could be devised. 1xbet online games login is a cell wall component that gives plants their rigidity.

Kathrin Schrick, assistant professor in K-State's Division of Biology, has been awarded nearly 0,000 for the next four years from the National Science Foundation to investigate the role sterols, fat-soluble molecules, play in the cell's production of 1xbet online games login .

"If we can understand how it is made and how to break it down into simple sugars, then we can generate energy," Schrick said. "We know that sterols are important in making 1xbet online games login , but we are not clear how they work. This grant is funding research that should help us with that."

1xbet online games login is composed of complex fibers made of sugar. Since its strength functions to keep plant tissue sturdy, it also makes it difficult to break down, Schrick said. It requires harsh pretreatment and expensive enzymes, so Schrick hopes her research will provide an understanding of how 1xbet online games login is made, which might give insight on how to break it down more easily.

"Not even the structure of 1xbet online games login synthase, the enzyme responsible for activating 1xbet online games login machinery, is known. We can model it, we can imagine how it looks but we don't really know, and we know even less about how it functions," Schrick said.

Schrick has two hypotheses for sterols' association with the 1xbet online games login machinery. She believes that sterols either help to stabilize the construction of 1xbet online games login , or they transfer glucose residues to the machinery to make 1xbet online games login .

"We know that the machinery that builds 1xbet online games login sits in the plasma membrane. Our hypothesis is that the protein complex that makes 1xbet online games login actually needs to directly interact with sterols to function properly," she said.

Her hypotheses came from her discovery of a mutation in a dwarf Arabidopsis plant, a common model species used in scientific research. The mutant plant produces about 50 percent less 1xbet online games login than normal plants, causing the plant to be smaller and unable to reach maturity in the wild. Schrick went on to discover that mutations in several enzymes, required for the biosynthesis of sterols, affect the amount of 1xbet online games login produced.

"The sterol biosynthesis mutants have shown us that sterols are critical for 1xbet online games login synthesis, but we still don't understand why. We are using the latest tools to solve the problem at the molecular level, which will potentially lead to advances in the development of biofuels," she said.

Schrick is collaborating with several scientists nationally and internationally. Among them are Seth DeBolt at the University of Kentucky, a co-principle investigator on the grant, and Vincent Bulone at the Division of Glycosciences in the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

Bulone was one of the first scientists to efficiently synthesize 1xbet online games login outside of the cell by gathering all the necessary components needed to build 1xbet online games login fibers in a test tube. The level of 1xbet online games login synthase activity achieved in Bulone's lab represents the highest proportion of 1xbet online games login reported from in vitro synthesis to date, Schrick said.

Schrick received her doctorate from the University of Washington. She joined K-State in 2009 after holding dual positions at the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences and the California Institute of Technology.