Progress Towards the Generation of Oily Miscanthus

Authors:

Anthony Trieu^1,2* ([email protected]), Kiyoul Park^1,3, Gopala Battu², Shilpa Manjunatha^1,2, Madison Seaber^1,4, Erik Sacks^1,5, Tom Clemente^1,6, Nancy Reichert^1,4, Edgar Cahoon,^1,3, Kankshita Swaminathan^1,2, Andrew Leakey⁵

Institutions:

¹DOE Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation; ²HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology; ³Center for Plant Science Innovation, University of Nebraska–Lincoln; ⁴Department of Biological Sciences, Mississippi State University; 5Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign; ⁶Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

URLs:

https://cabbi.bio/

Goals

The goal of this project is to increase the production of vegetative lipids in miscanthus via genetic engineering.

Abstract

Miscanthus, a Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI) feedstock, is a tall perennial rhizomatous temperate grass. Because of its high biomass yield, high carbohydrate and low ash content, high calorific value, remarkable environmental adaptability, high water and land use efficiency, and low fertilizer and pesticide requirements, it has become one of the most promising sustainable crops for biomass, bioenergy, and bioproducts. One of CABBI’s major goals is to increase the value of its feedstocks by using the “plants as factories” paradigm to produce novel high value bioproducts. Previously, researchers have demonstrated the ability to transform and edit multiple lines in the two major species of Miscanthus, M. sinensis and M. sacchariflorus, and a high performing orthospecies M. x giganteus, which is a hybrid of the two species. Here, the team reports the progress of this research on transforming miscanthus with two constructs designed to increase vegetative triacylglycerol (TAG) production. These constructs, pPTN1569 and pPTN1586, were previously vetted in sorghum.

References

Trieu, A., et al. 2022. “Transformation and Gene Editing in the Bioenergy Grass Miscanthus,” Biotechnology for Biofuels and Bioproducts 15. DOI:10.1186/s13068-022-02241-8.

Funding Information

This work was funded by the DOE Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (U.S. DOE, Office of Science, BER program under Award Number DE-SC0018420.