TECHNOLOGY
PHOTO: RUDOLF H. SCHEFFRAHN, PROFESSOR OF ENTOMOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA.
of relevance to the agency’s missions including those associated with global carbon cycling, alternative energy production and bioremediation. Leadbetter’s proposal involved examining the microbial members of the hindgut pouch— the largest part of the termite gut—of higher termites that belong to the genus Nasutitermes. “This was a fairly risky project when we proposed it,” Leadbetter says. “In these abundant tropical termites, there was no compelling evidence that microbes play direct roles in cellulose degradation.” Once the proposal was accepted, the fun began.
Termite-Gut Bacteria Early on in the project, several other groups joined the Leadbetter team including microbial ecologists at JGI, researchers at Verenium Corp. and INBio, the National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica. The first step was to find termites. “Termites are very small so one termite is not enough for doing the genome sequencing,” Warnecke says. The termite hindgut consists of a viscous fluid with a toothpaste-like consistency. Although it’s the largest intestinal compartment, the volume of the hindgut liquid from a single termite would only form a pinhead-sized dot if placed on a piece of wax paper. “We needed a couple of hundred termites,” Warnecke explains.
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Nasutitermes corniger termite species
To that end the team headed to Central America. “Verenium has agreements with the Costa Rican government and has established a lab there so they had the infrastructure and permits for sampling termites,” Warnecke
ETHANOL PRODUCER MAGAZINE MARCH 2008