(257d) Hydrolysis of Biomass with Plant Expressed Cell Wall Degrading Enzymes

Significant amounts of cell wall degrading enzymes are required to degrade lignocellulosic biomass into its component sugars. One approach to reducing that requirement is to produce the enzymes in planta. For this work, various cell wall degrading enzymes were expressed in the green tissue of maize. Following growth and dry down of the plant, the material was tested to determine the impact of the enzymes on the production of glucose and xylose from the corn stover. The hydrolysis experiments were performed after a moderate pretreatment and involved the addition of various amounts of exogenous enzymes. The results demonstrate that for plants expressing certain cell wall degrading enzymes, the monomer sugar yields after hydrolysis of the transgenic plant are higher than those of a control plant. This suggests that the production of enzymes in plants could lead to both reduced pretreatment and enzyme costs in cellulosic bioprocessing.