S.D. scientists looking for immediate practical applications from DUSEL research

Antibiotics, ethanol production at top of list for possibilities from bio-prospecting research

BY WENDY PITLICK, Black Hills Pioneer
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LEAD - Antibiotics that can sustain very high temperatures and enzymes that could help make ethanol production easier will be the focus of Drs. Sookie Bang, Bruce Bleakley, James Staley, Fathi Halaweish, and Mike Lehman when they embark on a bio-prospecting project in the deep underground science and engineering laboratory.

Bang, a microbiology professor at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, along with Bleakley and Halaweish of South Dakota State University, Staley of the University of Washington, and Lehman of the U.S. Department of Agriculture submitted a proposal to enter the deepest reaches of the Homestake Mine to search for microorganisms that grow and thrive in the high temperatures underground.

According to Bang, since scientists know that microorganisms existed deep underground before the Homestake mining operations started, the introduction of outside materials, people and animals would have interacted with the isolated microorganisms underground. This interaction, Bang said could have caused an evolutionary mutation which could have resulted in very different microorganisms, metabolites and by-products that the world has never seen.

Additionally, Bang said those microorganisms that live and thrive underground in high temperatures are called thermophiles, and their discovery could yield some immediate practical effects on the scientific community.

"Those thermophiles are growing and they are producing enzymes as well as antibiotics which can sustain high temperature," Bang said. "Most antibiotics are very temperature sensitive and they're structure will be destroyed when they are exposed to high temperatures. But those microorganisms living in the high temperature (could) have the potential to produce antibiotics ... which can be easily temperature tolerant. That will be very valuable."

But perhaps the most immediate practical application for Bang's bio-prospecting research will be its potential effects on the ethanol industry. Since the underground enzymes are thought to be able to sustain higher temperatures than normal enzymes, Bang said they could be very valuable in the cellulose material degradation, a process that is necessary to create ethanol. Discovery of the new enzymes, Bang said, could make the ethanol production process more efficient.

All of this is directly related to the recent creation of the S.D. 2010 Center for Bio-processing and Research Development, housed at the S.D. School of Mines and Technology. One of the major research components that drives the center, Bang said, is utilizing thermophiles from the deep underground science and engineering laboratory. The best place to get these thermophiles, Bang said, is the Homestake Mine.

"The advantage in the DUSEL at Homestake is its depth," Bang said. "The deepest hole will introduce really high temperatures. We went down to 8,000-feet before (the mine closed.) At that time there were really high temperatures and we saw a lot of different biophil bacteria and (water) seepage. As a result you can see some type of fungal growth here and there ... If we make Homestake Mine a DUSEL that will give us real opportunity to isolate and discover real novel microorganisms which may not be found easily in other DUSEL areas because they are not as deep as Homestake."

At 8,000-feet, Bang said the temperature in the Homestake Mine is about 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit).

While she said she is very anxious to get into the mine to conduct her research, Bang said soil waste material that was scraped last June when members of the Homestake collaboration sent a camera in to videotape the Yates shaft has yielded some very interesting results. Those samples were taken from the 4,850 foot level, where the temperature is significantly cooler. Yet when the bacteria was isolated and heated, Bang said the enzymes grew and thrived. That lead Bang and her collaborators to believe that perhaps microorganisms obtained from the 4,850-foot level could be isolated and used to sustain high temperatures similar to those which microorganisms at the 8,000-foot level are exposed to. But still, Bang said she wants to go as deep into the mine as possible. "We're trying to make a bigger sample," she said. "Basically microorganisms coming from extremophiles (extreme conditions) have the ability to produce really exotic enzymes, particularly if we can identify those from mine shafts or wood debris. Those are the ones producing good quality thermophiles which can degrade cellulose material." While Bang said her research into using thermophiles for ethanol production is novel, the idea of bio-prospecting for enzymes that live deep within the earth is not. Currently NASA is funding a project for scientists from the Lawrence-Berkeley National Laboratory and Princeton University to study microorganisms in deep underground mines in South Africa.

S.D. School of Mines and Technology's recent creation

Those microorganisms that live and thrive underground in high temperatures, Bang said, are called thermophiles.

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