DIFFERENT TARGETS FOR THE DESIGN OF BIOMASS OF PLANTS

BUSI, M.V.

PARANA

Congreso; LIV Reunión Anual Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular (SAIB),; 2018

SAIB - Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular

The consumption of biomass continues to increase worldwide due to the needs of food and energy provision. Therefore, it is considered as a need to generate more significant quantities of biomass or modified biomass that can meet this demand. For this purpose, biotechnological approaches emerge as advantageous since they are fast and well-known ways of improving. A potential biotechnological target for improving the production of biofuels is the modification of plant cell walls. This modification is achieved via several strategies, including, among others, altering biosynthetic pathways and modifying the associations and structures of various cell wall components. We modified the cell wall of Arabidopsis thaliana by targeting the starch-binding domains (SBD) of A. thaliana starch synthase III to this structure. The resulting transgenic plants (E8-SDB123) showed increased biomass, higher levels of both fermentable sugars and hydrolyzed cellulose and altered cell wall properties such as higher laxity and degradability, which are valuable characteristics for the second-generation biofuels and livestock feed industries. On the other hand, drought is one of the main causes of crop loss every year, and the current trend in global climate change is likely to exacerbate this situation in the years to come. A major challenge, therefore, is increasing non-food biomass without competing with food production, while also protecting dwindling water resources and enabling cultivation of crops on land not suitable for food production. The functions of SINA (Seven in absentia) homologues have been almost fully documented in animals, but the roles of these E3 ubiquitin-ligases are not well known in plants. Our work with SINAL7 (Seven in absentia like 7) from A. thalianasuggests its involvement in the regulation of glycolysis by modulating the localization and activity of GAPC1. Futhermore, we obtained evidence to show that the over-expression of SINAL7 causes changes in vegetative parameters such as increased biomass, a delay in senescence and the increased drought tolerance.