Regulatory elements of carbon metabolism in sugar cane

Abstract

The development of cellulosic bioethanol technology, in which bagasse is used to produce bioethanol, has generated interest in the development of energy sugarcane, which has more fiber and biomass. The development of energy sugarcane will favor the production of cellulosic ethanol and its biomass can also be used in biorefineries with integrated production of multiple products including biofuels, bio-electricity, chemical compounds, biogas and heat. However, for the development of energy sugarcane, it is necessary to modify the sugarcane characteristics by altering the carbon sugar partition for biomass. This strategy involves the knowledge of the regulatory networks of secondary cellular wall metabolism, which is the main component of plant biomass, as well as the development of biotechnological tools to rearrange the network connections in order to produce biomass with the desired characteristics. The identification of the components of the networks, especially the transcription factors and the interaction with the promoter of their target genes, will serve as a basis for the design and construction of synthetic promoters aiming at the creation of technology that can be applied in the production of transgenic plants with the desired biomass characteristics. (AU)