Biofuels SFA

Tools and functionality to support a systems biology approach to understanding interactions in bioenergy-relevant microbial communities

The Systems Biology Approach to Interactions and Resource Allocation in Bioenergy-Relevant Microbial Communities (a.k.a. Biofuels) Science Focus Area (SFA), led by Dr. Rhona Stuart at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), is focused on the community systems biology of microbial consortia that are closely associated with bioenergy-relevant plants and algae. The SFA focuses on linking microscale impacts of single cells on system scale processes, applying quantitative isotope tracing of elemental exchanges and various ‘omics-based approaches. The project also utilize constraint-based genome-scale metabolic modeling to predict and test interactions within microbial communities.

Biofuels had improved the quality of genome annotations to improve draft metabolic models within KBase, by developing tools for importing, comparing, and merging metabolic annotations. These tools expedite the curation process during model building and produce the high-quality, multi-evidenced curated models needed to investigate the complex interactions within microbial communities.

Longer term, the team seeks to engage with KBase to interpret and integrate data streams to further goals around understanding and predicting ecological, biophysical, and biochemical dynamics of multi-taxa communities, as well as the metabolite fluxes that regulate trophic interactions.

Collaborative Development Projects

Starting Fall 2021 – Probabilistic Annotation and Ensemble Metabolic Modeling

Improving Draft Metabolic Models:

Create annotation tools that accept multiple lines of evidence to determine an optimal consensus annotation from data like EC numbers, KEGG, and MetaCyc reaction identifiers.

Functionality and Tools

Additional Information

Meet the Members

SFA Manager: Henry Shaw1
SFA Principal Investigator: Rhona Stuart1
KBase Contact: Chris Henry2,3
Lead Developers: Patrik D’haeseleer1, Jeffrey Kimbrel1
Project Team: Ali Navid1, Ben Bowen4
Affiliations: 1Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 2Argonne National Laboratory, 3KBase, 4Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Resources

System Maintenance March 31 2023

We will be performing system maintenance on Friday, March 31, 2023, from approximately 10-11am PDT (12-1pm CDT).  There may be 30-60 second interruptions in service during this time.