Dairy microbe research points to enzyme future

Research on how microbes in dairy cattle work may provide an opening for the $2 billion market for industrial enzymes, says Fonterra's biotech arm, Vialactia Biosciences.

Vialactia's chief forage scientist, Kieran Elborough, said the research - featured in this month's Environmental Microbiology scientific journal - had considerable potential to boost productivity in the pastoral sector.

If the enzyme could be used to improve digestibility of forage, whether in the cow's rumen or in pre-treatment of feed, then the pressure on pastoral systems would be reduced because less feed would be needed to achieve the same meat or milk yield.

"We could expect further benefits for environmental sustainability, due to reduced need for irrigation and fertilisers," Elborough said.

Enzymes are proteins that regulate the rate of chemical reactions such as digestion and they can also be used in industries ranging from pharmaceutical manufacturing to paper production, as well as effluent treatment.

Elborough said the enzymes already in the cattle rumen were specialised, but research into the way they worked had produced quicker results than anyone expected.

Scientists from Vialactia, the Gesellschaft fur Biotechnologische Forschung in Germany and the Instituto de Catalisis y Petroleoquimica in Spain had together developed technology that allowed them to isolate the genetic information of all microbes present in a single organism and to also identify new natural enzymes.

This "metagenomic" technology provided a powerful new way to survey microbes in their natural environment, without having to grow each microorganism under laboratory conditions.

Sampling the microbes in-place had produced some amazing results, the researchers said.

- NZPA