[Seminars] PSB event reminder

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Calendar Name: seminars
Scheduled for: Friday, March 9 2012, 14:00 - 15:30
Event text:    Prof Wout Boerjan
	       
	       VIB, Dept. of Plant Systems Biology
	       Ghent University
	       
	       Gent
	       BELGIUM
Details:       “Engineering lignin for biofuels”
	       
	       ABSTRACT
	       Lignin is an aromatic polymer that is abundantly present
	       in secondarily-thickened plant cell walls. It confers
	       rigidity to the wall and allows transport of water and
	       solutes through the vascular system. However, lignin
	       plays a negative role in a number of agro-industrial
	       processes, such as pulping and forage digestibility and
	       it is also one of the most important limiting factors in
	       the conversion of plant cell walls to fermentable sugars
	       in the process to liquid bio-fuels. Hence, significant
	       research efforts have been devoted to understand the
	       lignin biosynthesis pathway and the effects of
	       down-regulation of individual steps of this pathway on
	       lignin amount and composition, and on wood properties.
	       These studies have shown that lignin amount and
	       composition can be altered, often without apparent
	       negative consequences for plant health. The first
	       results obtained from poplar field trials will be used
	       to illustrate how lignin engineering can improve biomass
	       processing. Furthermore, we have taken a systems biology
	       approach involving transcriptomics and metabolomics in
	       Arabidopsis to study how the plant, as a biological
	       system, copes with perturbations in the lignin
	       biosynthesis pathway, to reveal regulation within this
	       pathway and to identifying novel genes with potential
	       economic value. Finally, an example will be presented
	       how natural variation in the poplar germplasm can be
	       exploited in a reverse genetics strategy to identify
	       gene function and to accelerate tree genetic
	       improvement.

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