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US 10,745,707 B2Granted
Digestibility of plant biomass
AssigneeBoard of Trustees of Michigan State University
InventorsFederica Brandizzi, Sang Jin Kim, Starla Zemelis-Durfee
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Plants described herein have increased biomass and are more readily digested into fermentable sugars when the plants express increased levels of one or more types of CGR2 and/or CGR3 enzymes.
Claims17
A plant comprising:
- a heterologous expression cassette comprising a heterologous promoter operably linked to an isolated nucleic acid segment encoding a methyltransferase CGR2 or CGR3 enzyme with at least 95% amino acid sequence identity to SEQ ID NO:
- 56 or 58, wherein the plant's pectin has at least 10% more methylesters than a wild type plant of the same species that does not have the expression cassette.
A method comprising:
- obtaining plant biomass from a plant comprising an expression cassette comprising an isolated nucleic acid segment encoding a methyltransferase CGR2 or CGR3 enzyme with at least 95% amino acid sequence identity to any of SEQ ID NO:
- 56 or 58;
- and
- digesting the plant biomass to yield at least 10% more fermentable sugars than is recovered than from a wild type plant biomass of the same species that does not have the expression cassette and is digested by the same procedure.
1 more element
A method comprising:
- expressing a methyltransferase CGR2 and/or CGR3 enzyme with at least 95% amino acid sequence identity to any of SEQ ID NO:
- 56 or 58 from a heterologous expression cassette at levels sufficient to increase a plant's biomass by at least 5% compared to a wild type plant of the same species that does not comprise the expression cassette;
- wherein the expression cassette comprises at least one heterologous promoter and an isolated nucleic acid segment encoding a CGR2 enzyme and/or an isolated nucleic acid segment encoding a CGR3 enzyme.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.