CRISPR/CAS technology for making better sugarcane based biofuel products

Sugarcane field

As the world continues to warm up due to excessive use of fossil fuels, climate change mitigation efforts are now greatly focused on producing such resources of energy which are energy efficient and eco-friendly at the same time. Sugarcane based liquid biofuels have been an important component of 1^st generation and 2^nd generation biofuels, however excessive demand of fuel has always been a challenge to deal. In this regard efforts focused on improving biofuel quality is of great significance.

 

The Challenge:

Sugarcane is generally rich of sugar molecules as it is a primary source of sugar based products and also traditionally have been used for the production of bioethanol for decades. A key challenge in this entire process is the “digestibility” which is the excess of various enzyme molecules to sugar content. Efforts have been made to enhance this efficiency during the stages involving production of 1^st generation and 2^nd generation biofuels, and it was only recently that with advent of modern gene editing technology a breakthrough has been achieved.

 

The Solution:

Research team from Brazil Ministry of Agriculture have been working to increase sugarcane content efficiency, the team carried out two different experiments targeting specific traits. In the first experiment the team focused on genes responsible for the production of acyl-transferases molecules and factors responsible for the rigidity of cell wall. The resultant product was the variety of cane with better access for enzyme to sugar content during hydrolysis process, which makes overall extraction of useful compounds from plant biomass more convenient. In a second related study the research group focused on enhancing the concentration of sugar content for this the silenced a gene responsible for production and relocation of sugar molecules and the silenced gene resulted in production of nearly 15% additional sucrose in stem portion while an increase of nearly 200% was observed in leaf portions. This also resulted in excessive production of glucose and fructose in it.

The resultant variety produced can result in higher quality production of bioethanol and production of better digestible products in animal feed as well creating opportunity for developing more high value addition industries in future.

Conclusion:

With annual production reaching near to 200 million metric tons better production of sugarcane and its products will be crucial for ensuring food production and climate change mitigation by increasing liquid based biofuels productions. In this view creating new varieties with modern technologies like CRISPR will be of great importance for future.