Concerns regarding fossil fuel supply and the environmental impacts of its use have stimulated interest in developing sustainable renewable transportation fuels. Such fuels can be produced through catalytic conversion of lipids and fatty acids from oilseed crops, oil-producing algae, or various microorganisms, such as microalgae, bacteria, yeast, and fungi. These microorganisms can grow under extreme environments; survive on cellulose and the like; and can have high productivity, particularly with genetic engineering. Optimizing production has proven impossible, until now.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has developed an approach to transforming oil-producing (oleaginous) microbe cells to improve lipid and chemical productivity. The approach involves integrating DNA from Agrobacterium into the chromosomes of the species in culture media comprising an antibiotic. The transformed cells include at least one exogenous nucleic acid and express at least one exogenous protein. Oil and chemicals produced directly or indirectly from the exogenous proteins can be isolated from culture media or the transformed cells. 

PNNL can transfer the approach as well as the transformed cells. The transformed cells can accumulate lipid at up to 70 percent of their dry weight or be further engineered with our genetic tools to produce alternative products.