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Abstract
BackgroundThe cell wall polymer lignin provides structural support and rigidity to plant cell walls, and therefore to the plant body. However, the recalcitrance associated with lignin impedes the extraction of polysaccharides from the cell wall to make plant-based biofuels and biomaterials. The cell wall digestibility can be improved by introducing labile ester bonds into the lignin backbone that can be easily broken under mild base treatment at room temperature. The FERULOYL-CoA MONOLIGNOL TRANSFERASE (FMT) enzyme, which may be naturally found in many plants, uses feruloyl-CoA and monolignols to synthesize the ester-linked monolignol ferulate conjugates. A mutation in the first lignin-specific biosynthetic enzyme, CINNAMOYL-CoA REDUCTASE (CCR), results in an increase in the intracellular pool of feruloyl-CoA.ResultsMaize (Zea mays) has a native putative FMT enzyme, and its ccr mutants produce an increased pool of feruloyl-CoA that can be used for conversion to monolignol ferulate conjugates. The decreased lignin content and monomers did not, however, impact the plant growth or biomass. The increase in monolignol conjugates correlated with an improvement in the digestibility of maize stem rind tissue.ConclusionsTogether, increased monolignol ferulates and improved digestibility in ccr1 mutant plants suggests that they may be superior biofuel crops.
Highlights
The cell wall polymer lignin provides structural support and rigidity to plant cell walls, and to the plant body
As the trees did not experience any significant growth defects, this study suggested that the monolignol ferulate strategy had enormous potential for the development of plants for biofuel and biomaterials applications
To examine the levels of monolignol ferulate conjugate (ML-FA) incorporated into ccr1 mutants, we used established genetically uniform W22 maize inbred lines obtained from the UniformMu collection [8]
Summary
The cell wall polymer lignin provides structural support and rigidity to plant cell walls, and to the plant body. The cell wall digestibility can be improved by introducing labile ester bonds into the lignin backbone that can be broken under mild base treatment at room temperature. One of the front contenders to replace the currently used petroleum fuel sources is cellulosic biofuels Plant material, such as corn stover, is an excellent source of cell wall material, but the lignin in the wall makes it difficult to deconstruct and effectively recover the valuable polysaccharides for conversion to fuels and other coproducts. Unlike the least recalcitrant of the interunit linkages in the lignin polymer, the β-ethers that require ~130 °C to cleave at a moderate rate of 10−3/min in 1 M NaOH [2], the esters in these modified lignins were broken by base treatment even at room temperature, improving the saccharification of the wood [1]. As the trees did not experience any significant growth defects, this study suggested that the monolignol ferulate strategy had enormous potential for the development of plants for biofuel and biomaterials applications
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