Biotech Updates

Signaling Pathway May Lead to Better Biofuel Sources

March 14, 2008

Researchers from Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana, have defined a biochemical pathway in plants that may help design plants to yield larger quantities of alternative biofuel source. Purdue’s Dan Szymanski, a plant geneticist and cellular biologist, says the the pathway moves materials that determine cell shape and size through a system of signaling proteins. In the future it might be possible to engineer plants with improved properties such as cell walls that are more massive or are more easily fermented in the biofuel process.

The discovery of "SPIKE1" which directs the protein signaling pathway is reported in Early Edition, the online publication of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read Purdue's press release at http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2008a/080306SzymanskiBiofuel.html