MSU Technologies

070080: Down Regulation and Up Regulation of Maize Lignin Biosynthesis Enzymes via RNAi Technology to Reduce Crop Pre-treatment Requirements for Bio-fuel Production, and/or Improve Hardwood Quality

Description:

Crops and crop residues such as maize stover are considered attractive cellulosic biomass feedstock for the production of bio-fuels, but suffer from the need to chemically pre-treat the material to break-down lignin and release cellulose and hemi-cellulose for fermentation. Crops with reduced pre-treatment would be advantageous. Lignin is also a major structural component of trees. Alteration in lignin content and/or composition could provide wood with improved properties.

Description

The invention is crop plants, particularly maize, but also trees, with altered lignin composition through down or up-regulation or other modification of lignin biosynthesis enzymes through RNAi based technology. The resulting plants provide crops and crop residues with reduced chemical pre-treatment requirements during bio-fuel production.

A similar approach could be applied to trees and provide wood with altered and improved quality characteristics.

Benefits

Cost savings: Reduced chemical pre-treatment of reduced lignin crops.
Efficiency improvement: The reduction in chemical pre-treatment will allow reduced chemical and energy consumption and reduced chemical waste management.
Higher bio-fuel yield: Increased bio-fuel productivity.
Altered wood: Trees and wood with altered quality performance.

Applications

Applications include genetically engineered crops used as feedstock for biofuel production and genetically engineered tree wood with altered properties.