Plants as green factories

The deposites of fossil fuels on our planet are being depleted and we have to look elsewhere for a sustainable method of producing energy and for alternative sources for all the compounds normally manufactured in the chemical industry on the basis of fossil fuels, such as bulk chemicals, bioactive molecules and polymers. Plants have an enormous plasticity that can be used to biochemically engineer them into environmentally benign green factories.

 

Plants are in fact nature’s best chemists because they constantly produce natural products that they use to communicate with their surroundings, respond to environmental changes and protect themselves from attacks by i.e. insects or microorganisms. Some of these natural bioactive products are already being used in the medical industry such as glucosinolates, vinblastine, resveratrol, and thapsigargin against cancer (link), and more are to come.

 

The plant’s cell wall consists of important biopolymers such as cellulose, pectin and lignin that is used in our everyday life and provides important fibres in our food. At the same time, the biopolymers of the plant cell wall constitute the largest amount of biomass on Earth and is a crucial material to access, for producing bioenergy (link). A goal in our research is to develop plants that produce costly fine chemicals and which – upon harvest and subsequent disintegration of the cell by enzymatic self-processing – break down the components in the cell wall that prevent effective conversion into bioenergy.

 

More info: contact Professor Birger Lindberg Møller