In the manufacture of “corn ethanol”, only the starchy portion of the grains, are utilized for ethanol production. The corn leaves and stalks (which are cellulosic in nature) are not usually used for ethanol production, and often end up in the soil or as animal fodder. The production of “cellulose ethanol” from plant biomass (such as leaves/stalks of corn) is often limited by the high cost of cellulose-degrading enzymes (called, “cellulases”). Cellulases liberate ethanol-fermentable sugars from the cellulose fibers in plants. Recently, however, scientists from Michigan State University (MSU in the United States) may have found a way to produce “cellulose ethanol” from the leaves and stalks in corn, without the high cost of cellulases. They have successfully inserted genes for three types of cellulases in a corn plant, called, “Spartan III”. These three types of cellulases can work synergistically to liberate as much sugar as possible, from corn cellulose fibers. The inserted cellulase genes were obtained from three different sources: a hot spring bacterium, a fungus and a cow gut bacterium. In order to prevent the plant from “digesting itself” while growing, the production of the enzyme was targeted in the vacuole of the plant cell. According to the MSU press release, the “vacuole is a safe place to store the enzyme until the plant is harvested”, and since the enzyme is stored only in the vacuole of green tissues in plant cells, “the enzyme is only produced in the leaves and stalks of the plant, not in the seeds, roots or the pollen. It is only active when used for biofuels production since it is stored in the vacuole.”.