Molecular genetic strategies for enhancing plant biomass for cellulosic ethanol production

Abstract

Biofuels are increasingly becoming popular due to the fact that they are renewable natural resources with low net emission of greenhouse gases. It is necessary to produce large enough biomass feedstock to get sustainable levels of biofuel production. Also, it is important to generate the biomass from non-food sources, and preferably using marginal lands. Therefore, it is important to plan a strategy to enhance the biomass production from non-food plants. Besides sugarcane, two of the plant species used to produce cellulosic ethanol are switchgrass and Miscanthus. To enhance the production of biomass in a unit area one can utilize breeding and biotechnological approaches. These would include genetic improvement of the species to withstand adverse conditions such as cold, drought, high salinity and attack by pathogens such as microbes. Also, it will be useful to modify plant architecture such as height and branching traits which are regulated by phytohormones. We discuss some of the strategies to genetically improve biofuel plant species in order to produce more biomass for future lignocellulosic ethanol production.