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Termite Bellies and Biofuels
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Falk Warnecke peered down through a mounted magnifying glass and poked gently at a small pile of bugs. They were dead—frozen and heaped on a chilled metal block like coffee grounds mounded on a spoon. With a pair of fine-tipped forceps, he grabbed one of the insects at the base of its thorax and lifted it off the block. It was brown, and hardly bigger than an eyelash. With a second forceps, he pinched the end of its abdomen. He tugged gently, and pulled it in two. A shiny, reddish string slid smoothly out of the exoskeleton. Warnecke smiled. "That's a good thing about termites," he said with a thick German accent. "You get the whole gut in one piece."
Warnecke doesn't want the termite's plumbing to get torn and its contents mixed around. It's the contents he's interested in. The gut has bulbous chambers that are swollen with vast quantities of microbes that the termites employ to break down cellulose from the wood or grass the insects consume. When he's not calling termites "cute little animals," he refers to them as "walking bioreactors," and considers their juicy interiors a kind of liquid gold. For now, he's interested only in the biggest bulb on the string, what's known as the third proctodeal segment, or, in the vernacular of microbial ecology, the "hindgut paunch." This microliter-sized compartment—much larger than the surrounding gut sections and easily distinguished with the naked eye—is home to a distinct community of microbes that some people think may help solve the energy crisis.
Warnecke, a researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, California, has been generating lots of attention lately for his work with termites. The insects are remarkably efficient at turning cellulose into sugar—the first step in making fuel from plants like switchgrass or poplar trees. Scientists can't compete with termites. They can break apart cellulose's tough bonds in the lab, but the enzymes they use are wildly, prohibitively expensive. That's where Warnecke comes in. His research has some people salivating at the prospect of dipping into the termites' microbial stew and pulling out a few enzymes that would finally make it possible to produce ethanol from cellulose on an industrial scale.
Laying aside the forceps, Warnecke picked up two long needles and pushed away the termite's limbs and carapace. He put a drop of buffer solution on the gut to keep it moist and then proceeded to attack the bulging hindgut paunch, repeatedly stabbing the shiny bulb until its contents spilled out and mixed with the buffer to form a slurry of enzymes and cellulose fragments. With his pipette, he sucked up some of the liquid "mash" and squirted it into a plastic tube. He hopes to identify the cellulose-degrading enzymes in the mash, but he first has to figure out which gut-dwelling bacteria make them, and which ones actually work at digesting cellulose.
On weekday mornings when the weather is good, Warnecke bikes to the BART train and takes it from Berkeley through the hills to the upscale suburb of Walnut Creek. At the train station he hops back on his bike and pedals a couple of miles past tidy strip malls and gas stations to Joint Genome Institute's verdant, industrial-park-like campus. The DOE opened the institute in 1997 to serve as the center of the Human Genome Project, which deciphered the sequence of base pairs in our DNA The project ended in 2003, but JGI remains a global hub of genome sequencing and mapping work. Inside the building's branching maze of labs and offices nearly a hundred washing machine-sized sequencing machines sit humming, awaiting DNA and RNA samples sent here for analysis by scientists around the world.
Warnecke, who earned his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany , has acquired an even more rarefied expertise in Walnut Creek. He's part of a small band of microbiologists who've left their agar plates for a relatively new field known as metagenomics, which involves analyzing DNA directly from environmental samples, like termite guts or a spoonful of ocean surface water, instead of from cultivated cells.
"Microbiologists have probably always suspected they were missing some diversity," said Warnecke. In the early days of genome sequencing, scientists grew a single type of microorganism at a time, then extracted and sequenced DNA from those cells. To them, sucking a random collection of microbes right out of a termite's belly and hoping to sequence and sort each individual bacteri um's genetic material would have seemed downright audacious, if not impossible.
Warnecke, who at 35 looks like a fresh-faced Vladimir Putin, considers himself an explorer at the lab bench. What pricks up the hairs at the back of his neck is the search for novel enzymes—a charting of new, and very, very small, territories. " It's like being the first person to see butterflies, " he says.
Fascinating article. The author has captured not only the interesting details (and potential application) of the research, but also the personal bond between the scientist and these creatures he spends his time with.
Posted by Teresa Cryan on July 25,2008 | 12:11PM
interesting stuff. i want to know more about this guy.
Posted by Sierra on July 25,2008 | 12:15PM
This report is an interesting story of science and the scientist.The reporter has depicted a dynamic picture of a laboratory and the surrounding elements in such a way that it becomes impossible to leave the reading.I applaud the reporter for her affectionate attempt to highlight a very promising scientific activity with often despised and neglected little animal,termite. I must appreciate the great microbiologist,WARNECKE, for his devotion to develop a protocol for supplying biofuel through an ingenious and environment friendly way. Wish great success to all concerned.
Posted by DR. SYED MD. ZAINUL ABEDIN on July 25,2008 | 06:32PM
Bring those little suckers to Colorado. We have several millon acres of dieing lodgepole, that termites can have.
Posted by Wayne Nelson on July 27,2008 | 12:12AM
Way to Vladamir, uh I mean Falk. I remember dissecting termites in AP Biology my senior year of high school in 1982 kiddo, uh Old Termite Microbial Jedi Master! Totally, kudos my friend. da Teacher
Posted by Rockin' Randy Monroe on July 28,2008 | 02:58PM
Very interesting research. I am one of few who applaud the oil crisis because it is bringing about inovations that will change the worlds dependence on oil as an energy source.
Posted by Charlee Ann Lewis on August 9,2008 | 12:13AM
Very interesting. Thanks JLF
Posted by James L. Freeman on August 9,2008 | 06:23PM
very lovely writing julia. i hope this is one in a series.
Posted by Jaimal Yogis on August 21,2008 | 08:08AM
Who would guess that the gut of termites have the potential to solve our energy crisis.Kudos to F.W.
Posted by jerri Wilson on August 27,2008 | 10:39AM
i hope that this research be finished as soon as possibly so that the wolrd will benefit from it. thumbs up to all the scientist dedecating thier lives to thier works even they are not been given much attention.
Posted by cesar b. rago jr. on September 8,2008 | 06:44PM
This is so interesting. I wish this reading would be in the old weekly reader type articles for junior high school students. Hopefully, high school science teachers have funding to subscribe to this magazine and sights like this are easy access. Our country needs good scientists and this looks like a great new field for discovery.
Posted by patty mccubbins on October 9,2008 | 01:30PM
These are difficult times in our national economy for continued funding of basic research. But you'll never know what will turn up if you don't look.
Posted by Carol Goetter on October 9,2008 | 04:20PM
Great article. I hope Dr. Warneke gets all the support he needs to complete his research. God bless him for his committment to such a worthy project.
Posted by Sharon Sheffield on October 9,2008 | 05:22PM
This is so interesting. I am a lecture on Faculty of Forestry Tanjungpura University West Borneo, Indonesia. I have conducted the research about termites for my PhD disertation. I used Coptotermes curvignathus Holmgren, especially on soldier defensive secretions. This secretions can be used as antifungi and as wood preservation. I think the gut of Coptotermes sp also can be used as biofuels. Would you like to conduct the coolaboration research with me ?
Posted by Farah Diba on October 11,2008 | 07:53AM
Dear Farah Diba - your work sounds really interesting! Feel free to contact me! Cheers Falk (FWarnecke@lbl.gov)
Posted by Falk Warnecke on October 19,2008 | 08:03PM
I am just a "civilian" as in i have no scientific training but I do admit to a "love of bugs". I was given the book "For Love of Insects" by Thomas Eisner (with a forward by E.O. Wilson) and my eyes are opening to the power and majesty of our little friends. This article was exciting and I am thrilled when great like minded people connect... (Farah Diba and Falk Warnecke)... I think this is exactly what the new Obama Administration is encouraging... like minds and energies connecting to aid the human condition... lets here it for science and people working together!
Posted by wila kent on January 21,2009 | 01:45PM