Banagrass is a biomass crop candidate for ethanol production in the State of Hawaii. This study examines: (i) whether enough banagrass can be produced to meet Hawaii’s renewable fuel target of 20% highway fuel demand produced with renewable sources by 2020 and (ii) at what cost. This study proposes to locate suitable land areas for banagrass production and ethanol processing, focusing on the tw...

Alcohol consumption has been shown to increase prolactin (PRL) production and cell proliferation of pituitary lactotropes. It also causes a reduction in the lactotrope's response to dopaminergic agents and a differential expression of dopamine 2 receptor short (D2S) and long (D2L) isoforms in the pituitary. However, the role of each of these D2 receptor isoforms and its coupled G protein in med...

BACKGROUND The understanding of the molecular basis of yeast tolerance to ethanol may guide the design of rational strategies to increase process performance in industrial alcoholic fermentations. A set of 21 genes encoding multidrug transporters from the ATP-Binding Cassette (ABC) Superfamily and Major Facilitator Superfamily (MFS) in S. cerevisiae were scrutinized for a role in ethanol stress...

Ethanol impairs immune responses in humans and animal models, in vivo and in vitro. In particular, ethanol inhibits some key functions of human polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN). We investigated the impact of ethanol on cytokine production by highly purified PMN. In a time- and concentration-dependent manner, ethanol inhibited the production of interleukin (IL)-8 protein and mRNA and also hin...

Rhizopus oryzae is a filamentous fungus, belonging to the order Mucorales. It can ferment a wide range of carbohydrates hydrolyzed from lignocellulosic materials and even cellobiose to produce ethanol. However, R. oryzae also produces lactic acid as a major metabolite, which reduces the yield of ethanol. In this study, we show that significant reduction of lactic acid production could be achiev...

Bioethanol is one of the most commonly used biofuels in transportation sector to reduce greenhouse gases. S. cerevisiae is the most employed yeast for ethanol production at industrial level though ethanol is produced by an array of other yeasts, bacteria, and fungi. This paper reviews the current and nonmolecular trends in ethanol production using S. cerevisiae. Ethanol has been produced from w...

Five different mutant strains were developed from the wild strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (MTCC No.287) using UV irradiation technique by varying the exposure timings. All the mutant cultures were used for ethanol production using banana peel as a substrate in a batch fermenter. The effect of temperature, pH and initial substrate concentration on ethanol production were studied and optimize...

Temperature and aeration shifts were used to perturb steady-state continuous cultures to determine the effects of ethanol on xylose metabolism by Candida shehatae. The accumulation of ethanol exerted a delayed inhibitory effect on the specific rate of substrate utilization. A second effect was also observed in which the specific rate of xylitol production increased at the expense of the specifi...

Yeast belonging to the genera Brettanom}'ces and Dekkera are noted for spoiling cellar and bottled wine through the production of haze, turbidity and acetic acid. However, I was unable to find information on the use of these yeasts for the expressed purpose of acetic acid production. Sixty yeast strains belonging to these, and several other genera, from the ARS Culture Collection, Peoria, IL, w...

This paper presents a general review of biomass-to-ethanol, analysis of conversion pathways from technical, economic and environmental points of view, and estimation of production cost in the Indian context. Due to learning curve and other economic reasons, Brazil and the United States are found to be more competitive worldwide and will maintain their comparative advantage in the next decade. H...