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Sweet sorghum as biofuel feedstock: recent advances and available resources.

ABSTRACT: Sweet sorghum is a promising target for biofuel production. It is a C4 crop with low input requirements and accumulates high levels of sugars in its stalks. However, large-scale planting on marginal lands would require improved varieties with optimized biofuel-related traits and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. Considering this, many studies have been carried out to generate genetic and genomic resources for sweet sorghum. In this review, we discuss various attributes of sweet sorghum that make it an ideal candidate for biofuel feedstock, and provide an overview of genetic diversity, tools, and resources available for engineering and/or marker-assisting breeding of sweet sorghum. Finally, the progress made so far, in identification of genes/quantitative trait loci (QTLs) important for agronomic traits and ongoing molecular breeding efforts to generate improved varieties, has been discussed.

SUBMITTER: Mathur S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5465577 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Sweet sorghum as biofuel feedstock: recent advances and available resources.

Mathur Supriya S Umakanth A V AV Tonapi V A VA Sharma Rita R Sharma Manoj K MK

Biotechnology for biofuels 20170608

Sweet sorghum is a promising target for biofuel production. It is a C4 crop with low input requirements and accumulates high levels of sugars in its stalks. However, large-scale planting on marginal lands would require improved varieties with optimized biofuel-related traits and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. Considering this, many studies have been carried out to generate genetic and genomic resources for sweet sorghum. In this review, we discuss various attributes of sweet sorghum t ...[more]

PMID: 28603553

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Project description:BACKGROUND:A major hindrance to the development of high yielding biofuel feedstocks is the ability to rapidly assess large populations for fermentable sugar yields. Whilst recent advances have outlined methods for the rapid assessment of biomass saccharification efficiency, none take into account the total biomass, or the soluble sugar fraction of the plant. Here we present a holistic high-throughput methodology for assessing sweet Sorghum bicolor feedstocks at 10 days post-anthesis for total fermentable sugar yields including stalk biomass, soluble sugar concentrations, and cell wall saccharification efficiency. RESULTS:A mathematical method for assessing whole S. bicolor stalks using the fourth internode from the base of the plant proved to be an effective high-throughput strategy for assessing stalk biomass, soluble sugar concentrations, and cell wall composition and allowed calculation of total stalk fermentable sugars. A high-throughput method for measuring soluble sucrose, glucose, and fructose using partial least squares (PLS) modelling of juice Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra was developed. The PLS prediction was shown to be highly accurate with each sugar attaining a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.99 with a root mean squared error of prediction (RMSEP) of 11.93, 5.52, and 3.23 mM for sucrose, glucose, and fructose, respectively, which constitutes an error of <4% in each case. The sugar PLS model correlated well with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and brix measures. Similarly, a high-throughput method for predicting enzymatic cell wall digestibility using PLS modelling of FTIR spectra obtained from S. bicolor bagasse was developed. The PLS prediction was shown to be accurate with an R2 of 0.94 and RMSEP of 0.64 ?g.mgDW-1.h-1. CONCLUSIONS:This methodology has been demonstrated as an efficient and effective way to screen large biofuel feedstock populations for biomass, soluble sugar concentrations, and cell wall digestibility simultaneously allowing a total fermentable yield calculation. It unifies and simplifies previous screening methodologies to produce a holistic assessment of biofuel feedstock potential.

Project description:BACKGROUND:The quest for sustainable production of renewable and cheap biofuels has triggered an intensive search for domestication of the next generation of bioenergy crops. Aquatic plants which can rapidly colonize wetlands are attracting attention because of their ability to grow in wastewaters and produce large amounts of biomass. Representatives of Azolla species are some of the fastest growing plants, producing substantial biomass when growing in contaminated water and natural ecosystems. Together with their evolutional symbiont, the cyanobacterium Anabaena azollae, Azolla biomass has a unique chemical composition accumulating in each leaf including three major types of bioenergy molecules: cellulose/hemicellulose, starch and lipids, resembling combinations of terrestrial bioenergy crops and microalgae. RESULTS:The growth of Azolla filiculoides in synthetic wastewater led up to 25, 69, 24 and 40 % reduction of NH4-N, NO3-N, PO4-P and selenium, respectively, after 5 days of treatment. This led to a 2.6-fold reduction in toxicity of the treated wastewater to shrimps, common inhabitants of wetlands. Two Azolla species, Azolla filiculoides and Azolla pinnata, were used as feedstock for the production of a range of functional hydrocarbons through hydrothermal liquefaction, bio-hydrogen and bio-ethanol. Given the high annual productivity of Azolla, hydrothermal liquefaction can lead to the theoretical production of 20.2 t/ha-year of bio-oil and 48 t/ha-year of bio-char. The ethanol production from Azolla filiculoides, 11.7 × 103 L/ha-year, is close to that from corn stover (13.3 × 103 L/ha-year), but higher than from miscanthus (2.3 × 103 L/ha-year) and woody plants, such as willow (0.3 × 103 L/ha-year) and poplar (1.3 × 103 L/ha-year). With a high C/N ratio, fermentation of Azolla biomass generates 2.2 mol/mol glucose/xylose of hydrogen, making this species a competitive feedstock for hydrogen production compared with other bioenergy crops. CONCLUSIONS:The high productivity, the ability to grow on wastewaters and unique chemical composition make Azolla species the most attractive, sustainable and universal feedstock for low cost, low energy demanding, near zero maintenance system for the production of a wide spectrum of renewable biofuels.

Dataset Information

Sweet sorghum as biofuel feedstock: recent advances and available resources.

Publications

Sweet sorghum as biofuel feedstock: recent advances and available resources.

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