The DOE JGI DNA Synthesis Science Program

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) started this program in 2012, as set forth in its 10-year strategic vision to serve community science as a user facility pioneering functional genomics to solve the most relevant bioenergy and environmental problems. The mission of the DNA Synthesis Science Program is to enable users to perform state-of-the-art functional genomics research and to help them translate genomic information into biological function. Our strategies are to provide users:

• Access to large-scale DNA synthesis and assembly capabilities (up to 400 K bases/proposal for independent PIs and 1.2 M bases/proposal for consortiums)
• Access to integrated genome technologies and informatics pipelines — from sequencing data generation and database mining including JGI genome databases (IMG, MycoCosm, and Phytozome), to construct design, DNA synthesis and assembly, microbial strain engineering, and transcriptome, proteome and metabolome analyses.

Here we also present several science projects supported by the program including “Discovery of novel TPP-dependent decarboxylase for enhanced medium-chain alcohol production (Nature Communications, 2015)”, “Discovery of GH1 family enzymes compatible with JBEI pretreatment (high temp, low pH, and the presence of ionic liquid) (ACS Chem Bio, 2014)”, and “Active site characterization of GH55 (JBC, 2015)".