Improving plant cell walls for use as a renewable industrial feedstock

Partners

UPS, Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse III / CNRS, France

Deborah Goffner and Jacquelin Grima

Our aim is to identify key genes (transcription factors and/or monolignol transporters) involved in secondary wall formation as potential targets for improved saccharification.

i) We provide maize lines with pre-established differences in cell wall digestibility and Arabidopsis secondary cell wall mutants for high throughout saccharification assays (WP1).

ii) By crossing in-house gene expression data obtained during secondary wall formation from in vitro Zinnia tracheary elements and Eucalyptus xylem, we select regulatory genes and identify their corresponding Arabidopsis T-DNA tagged mutants and/or RNAi lines.  Phenotyping is mainly based on altered lignification patterns and/or altered mechanical properties of stems (WP2).

Cross sections of wild type and mutant Arabidopsis stems stained with phloroglucinol (lignin).