Abstract
Biofuels are an alternative source of renewable and sustainable energy which can be obtained from lignocellulosic feedstock (crop or non-crop energy plants), algae, or as a by-product from the industrial processing of agricultural/food products, or from the recovery and reprocessing of products such as cooking and vegetable oil. Such biofuels are generally in the form of either bioethanol or biodiesel or biobutanol. It is necessary that improvements be made at every stage during the processing of biofuel starting from enhancing the ability of the plant to maximally utilize the solar energy to fix the CO2 into biomass and generate greater amounts of cellulosic material. The next step in the process would be to separate the cellulose from the lignin in a cost-effective way. And finally extract ethanol from this cellulose using various methodologies such as fermentation and/or cellulose pyrolysis. Engineering the steps involved in releasing the cellulose from the other cell wall components especially lignin would reduce the cost of generating biofuels from lignocellulosic materials. Hence, an in-depth understanding of the molecular components that are involved in either the regulation or biosynthesis of lignin and consequences/limitations of altering those pathways and redirecting the flux to alternate pathways are discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Barrière Y, Riboulet C, Mèchin V, Maltese S, Pichon M, Cardinal A, Lapierre C, Lubberstedt T, Martinant JP (2007) Genetics and genomics of lignification in grass cell walls based on maize as model species. Genes Genome Genomics 1(2):133–156
Chaddad FR (2010) UNICA: challenges to deliver sustainability in the Brazilian sugarcane industry. Int Food Agribus Manag Rev 13:173–192
Dixon RA, Chen F, Guo D, Parvathi K (2001) The biosynthesis of monolignols: a “metabolic grid”, or independent pathways to guaiacyl and syringyl units? Phytochemistry 57:1069–1084
Funnell DL, Pedersen JF (2006) Reaction of sorghum lines genetically modified for reduced lignin content to infection by Fusarium and Alternaria spp. Plant Dis 90:331–338
Funnell-Harris DL, Pedersen JF, Sattler SE (2010) Alteration in lignin biosynthesis restricts growth of Fusarium spp. In brown midrib sorghum. Phytopathology 100:671–681
Gallego-Giraldo L, Escamilla-Trevino L, Jackson LA, Dixon RA (2011a) Salicylic acid mediates the reduced growth of lignin down-regulated plants. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 108:20814–20819
Gallego-Giraldo L, Jikumaru Y, Kamiya Y, Tang YH, Dixon RA (2011b) Selective lignin down regulation leads to constitutive defense response expression in alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.). New Phytol 190:627–639
Grabber JH, Ralph J, Lapierre C, Barrière Y (2004) Genetic and molecular basis of grass cell-wall degradability. I. Lignin-cell wall matrix interactions. Comptes Rendus de Biologie 327:455–465
Grabber JH, Hatfield RD, Lu F, Ralph J (2008) Coniferyl ferulate incorporation into lignin enhances the alkaline delignification and enzymatic degradation of cell walls. Biomacromolecules 9:2510–2516
Harrington MJ, Marek M, Barrière Y, Sibout R (2012) Molecular biology of lignification in grasses. Adv Bot Res 61:77–112
Huang J, Bhinu VS, Li X, Bashi ZD, Zhou R, Hannoufa A (2009) Pleiotropic changes in Arabidopsis f5h and sct mutants revealed by large-scale gene expression and metabolite analysis. Planta 23:1057–1069
Huang JL, Gu M, Lai ZB, Fan BF, Shi K, Zhou YH et al (2010) Functional analysis of the Arabidopsis PAL gene family in plant growth, development, and response to environmental stress. Plant Physiol 153:1526–1538
Quentin M, Allasia V, Pegard A, Allais F, Ducrot PH, Favery B et al (2009) Imbalanced lignin biosynthesis promotes the sexual reproduction of homothallic oomycete pathogens. PLoS Pathog 5:e1000264
Sattler SE, Funnell-Harris DL (2013) Modifying lignin to improve bioenergy feedstocks: strengthening the barrier against pathogens? Front Plant Sci Rev 4:70
Vincent D, Lapierre C, Pollet B, Cornic G, Negroni L, Zivy M (2005) Water deficits affect caffeate O-methyltransferase, lignification, and related enzymes in maize leaves. A proteomic investigation. Plant Physiol 137:949–960
Wang HZ, Dixon RA (2012) On–off switches for secondary cell wall biosynthesis. Mol Plant 5(2):297–303
Wang H, Avci U, Nakashima J, Hahn MG, Chen F, Dixon RA (2010) Mutation of WRKY transcription factors initiates pith secondary wall formation and increases stem biomass in dicotyledonous plants. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 107:22338–22343
Xu Z, Zhang D, Hu J, Zhou X, Ye X, Reichel KL, Stewart NR, Syrenne RD, Yang X, Gao P, Shi W, Doeppke C et al (2009) Comparative genome analysis of lignin biosynthesis gene families across the plant kingdom. BMC Bioinformatics 10(Suppl 11):S3
Yang F, Mitra P, Zhang L, Prak L, Verhertbruggen Y, Kim JS, Sun L, Zheng K, Tang K, Auer M, Scheller HV, Loqué D (2013) Engineering secondary cell wall deposition in plants. Plant Biotechnol J 11(3):325–335
Zhao Q, Dixon RA (2011) Transcriptional networks for lignin biosynthesis: more complex than we thought? Trends Plant Sci 16:227–233
Zhao Q, Wang H, Yin Y, Xu Y, Chen F, Dixon RA (2010) Syringyl lignin biosynthesis is directly regulated by a secondary cell wall master switch. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 107:14496–14501
Zhong R, Ye ZH (2007) Regulation of cell wall biosynthesis. Curr Opin Plant Biol 10:564–572
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer India
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gandotra, N. (2014). Molecular Builders of Cell Walls of Lignocellulosic Feedstock: A Source for Biofuels. In: Hakeem, K., Rehman, R., Tahir, I. (eds) Plant signaling: Understanding the molecular crosstalk. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1542-4_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1542-4_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New Delhi
Print ISBN: 978-81-322-1541-7
Online ISBN: 978-81-322-1542-4
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)