Award details

Carbohydrate metabolism and resource allocation in grasses

Reference	BBS/E/W/00003134B
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Iain Donnison
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Professor Joseph Gallagher
Institution	Aberystwyth University
Department	IBERS
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	1,040,000
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/2008
End date	31/03/2012
Duration	48 months

Abstract

Carbohydrate metabolism plays a central role in the provision of substrates for bioenergy and biorenewables. The concentrations of readily fermentable carbohydrates in grasses are highly significant as a determinant for biofuel production. Further understanding of the regulation of carbohydrate metabolism in grasses is required for future plant breeding of energy grasses and to optimise the harvesting, storage and processing of biomass for efficient recovery of bioenergy/ natural products. Key objectives in this work are an understanding of (1) plant carbon partitioning/accumulation, at whole plant, tissue and sub-cellular levels, with emphasis on starch and sucrose in Miscanthus and on fructan, starch and sucrose in Lolium; and (2) expression of candidate genes and their association with QTL for non-structural carbohydrates. This work supports and integrates with studies on the identification of QTL for sugar metabolism (initially on Lolium, and later extended to Miscanthus) and the validation of QTL by marker-based test crosses. Transformation will be used to test gene function; candidate genes will be mapped and related to QTL on the Lolium and Miscanthus genetic maps.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Plant & Microbial Sciences (PMS)
Research Topics	Bioenergy, Crop Science, Industrial Biotechnology, Plant Science
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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