Microbial consortia for the conversion of biomass into fuels and chemicals

Abstract There is currently significant interest in employing microbial communities for converting lignocellulosic feedstock into chemicals, fuels, and other products of use to humans. Both naturally occurring microbial communities, which can be prohibitively complex, and synthetic consortia, which are simple though can be unstable and unpredictable, have been employed to that end. Recent work has focused on developing tools for enabling wider application of microbial consortia in both lignocellulose valorization and bioprocesses in general. Together with improved methods of process monitoring and creative process design, newly developed biosynthetic tools may represent key facilitators for commercial realization of consortia-based lignocellulose conversion processes.