Metabolic Engineering of Plants to Produce Precursors (Phloroglucinol and 1,2,4-butanetriol) of Energetic Materials
Abstract
Current chemical-based synthesis of energetic materials uses toxic ingredients and produces many environmentally undesirable wastes. In addition, chemical-based production is not sustainable because many of the chemicals used in making these precursors are petroleum-based. An alternative strategy is to produce precursors of energetic materials using a bio-based approach. Recently, significant progress has been made in identifying the genes and enzymes in microbes that can produce precursors of energetic materials. This knowledge can now be exploited to use plants for producing precursors of energetic materials in a sustainable manner. Plants offer many advantages in producing energetic ingredients. These include sustainability as they are renewable sources, likely to be highly cost-effective as they use light energy and CO2 to produce sugars and other organic compounds that can be converted into desirable carbon compounds. The focus of our project is to use bacterial enzymes to engineer plant metabolism to produce precursors of energetic materials. The specific objectives of this proposal are: 1) Metabolic engineering of plants to produce high levels of phloroglucinol by introducing a bacterial gene that converts malonyl Co-A to phloroglucinol into plants. 2) Metabolic engineering of plants to produce butanetriol. This will be accomplished by introducing bacterial genes involved in butanetriol synthesis from xylose and arabinose. 3) To develop regeneration and robust stable transformation technologies for Miscanthus to introduce and express genes involved in synthesis of energetic materials.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA548908
Entities
People
- Anireddy S. Reddy
Organizations
- Colorado State University