Abstract
BackgroundResidual biomass production for fuel conversion represents a unique opportunity to avoid concerns about compromising food supply by using dedicated feedstock crops. Developing tomato varieties suitable for both food consumption and fuel conversion requires the establishment of new selection methods.ResultsA tomato Solanum pennellii introgression population was assessed for fruit yield, biomass phenotypic diversity, and for saccharification potential. Introgression lines 2–5, 2–6, 6–3, 7–2, 10–2 and 12–4 showed the best combination of fruit and residual biomass production. Lignin, cellulose, hemicellulose content and saccharification rate showed a wide variation in the tested lines. Within hemicellulose, xylose value was high in IL 6–3, IL 7–2 and IL 6–2, whereas arabinose showed a low content in IL 10–2, IL 6–3 and IL 2–6. The latter line showed also the highest ethanol potential production. Alkali pre-treatment resulted in the highest values of saccharification in most of lines tested, suggesting that chemical pretreatment is an important factor for improving biomass processability. Interestingly, extreme genotypes for more than one single trait were found, allowing the identification of better genotypes. Cell wall related genes mapping in genomic regions involved into tomato biomass production and digestibility variation highlighted potential candidate genes. Molecular expression profile of few of them provided useful information about challenged pathways.ConclusionsThe screening of S. pennellii introgression population resulted very useful for delving into complex traits such as biomass production and digestibility. The extreme genotypes identified could be fruitfully employed for both genetic studies and breeding.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12863-016-0362-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Residual biomass production for fuel conversion represents a unique opportunity to avoid concerns about compromising food supply by using dedicated feedstock crops
The introgression lines 2–5, 2–6, 6–3, 7–2, 10–2 and 12–4 showed the highest combination of fruit and residual biomass production and the introgression lines 2–1, 3–2, 4–3, 5–1 and 7–1 the lowest
In order to identify candidate QTL for biomass production by in silico analysis, we looked at selected ILs for cell wall related genes
Summary
Residual biomass production for fuel conversion represents a unique opportunity to avoid concerns about compromising food supply by using dedicated feedstock crops. Over the last decades, rising concerns upon depleting fossil fuels has resulted in an increased interest in fuels derived from bio-renewable sources including sugars, starch and lignocellulosic materials [1]. Lignocellulosic biomass materials constitute the most abundant renewable substrate for ethanol [2]. Lignocellulosic biomass can be obtained in large-scale from agricultural residues, making their conversion into fuel more advantageous from the economic, environmental and strategic points of view [4]. The production of ethanol from biomass residuals represents a unique opportunity to avoid concerns about compromising food supply by using starch or sucrose based feedstocks [5,6,7]. A few attempts have been conducted to investigate the potential of producing fuel
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