Project Details
Projekt
Identification and characterization of components involved in mannan synthesis to increase lignocellulosic biofuel production
Applicant
Dr. Thea Pick
Subject Area
Plant Physiology
Term
from 2015 to 2017
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 286181067
Plant biomass serves as an abundant renewable source for biofuel and bioenergy production. In bioenergy production processes, plant-derived sugars such as starch, sucrose, cellulose, and hemicellulose are used for fermentation by microorganisms (yeast, bacteria) to produce desired products. Primarily food crops, like Zea mays (corn) and Saccharum officinarum (sugarcane) are currently used for the production of first-generation biofuels. As energy demand steadily increases the competing priorities between energy production needs and food supply will grow significantly. In response, the US and European governments have mandated that a sustainable amount of renewable fuel be derived from non-food crops (second-generation biofuels) in five to seven years. Achieving this mandate requires extensive basic research and scientific advancements to optimize and boost the fermentation process of non-food plant tissues, namely lignocellulosic feedstocks. A promising approach to facilitate fermentation of lignocellulosic feedstocks is to increase the C6 sugar content, e.g. mannans, in plant cell walls. Plant cell walls are mainly composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Only cellulose and hemicellulose contain C6 sugars. In cellulose these sugars are packed in crystalline arrays and are least accessible to microbial fermentation. The C6 sugars in hemicellulose, like mannans, are better accessible to microbial enzymes and are therefore a suitable target for plant cell wall engineering. As a DFG fellow, I propose to identify and characterize components involved in mannan synthesis to increase the glucomannan content in plant cell walls. This work will generate basic knowledge of mannan biosynthesis that will help to boost biofuel production through improved fermentation. To reach this goal I will (1) use an in silico analysis to filter and analyze coexpression databases to identify genes co-expressed with known components involved in mannan biosynthesis and will use existing data sets to generate a new set of candidate genes. (2) analyze the top candidates on a molecular and biochemical level to detect the candidates role in mannan biosynthesis and in global plant metabolism. (Arabidopsis thaliana will be used as a model plant.) (3) use a bioinformatics approach and computational modeling to predict which combination of components and which expression and regulation of components will lead to an increased mannan content in plant cell walls. I hypothesize that these results will lead to a near complete picture of mannan biosynthesis. The ultimate goal of this work is to create a plant with increased mannan content in plant cell walls to boost biofuel production through improved fermentation.
DFG Programme
Research Fellowships
International Connection
USA
