A team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
has identified the genes and enzymes that create a promising compound — the 19
carbon furan-containing fatty acid (19Fu-FA). The compound has a variety of
potential uses as a biological alternative for compounds currently derived from
fossil fuels.
Researchers from the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center
(GLBRC), which is headquartered at UW-Madison and funded by the U.S. Department
of Energy, discovered the cellular genomes that direct 19Fu-FA’s synthesis and
published the new findings Aug. 4 in the journal Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences.