1. Front Cover.cdr - CORE

Pleanary session 6
A B S T R A C T B O O K – A B S T R A C T S O F T A L K S
CELL WALL BIOSYNTHESIS AND BIOFUELS
David Cavalier, Linda Danhof, Jonathan Davis, Benjamin Fode, Jacob Jensen, Barbara
Reca, Yan Wang, Curtis Wilkerson, Kenneth Keegstra.
Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
E-mail: Keegstra@msu.edu
Hemicellulosic polysaccharides constitute a significant portion of plant biomass and need
to be fully utilized to make biofuel production sustainable. While the hemicellulosic
fraction of most common forms of biomass consists mainly of xylan polymers containing
pentose monomers, some biomass contains hemicellulosic polysaccharides that are rich
in hexoses. An important prelude to manipulation of hemicellulose quality and quantity is
to understand both the biochemical details of hemicelluose biosynthesis as well as the
regulatory events that control hemicellulose synthesis and deposition. Considerable
progress has been made in recent years in identifying the genes and proteins responsible
for hemicellulose biosynthesis. The Cellulose Synthase-Like (CSL) proteins are involved in
making the backbone of many hemicellulosic polysaccharides, while several classes of
glycosyltransferases are required for addition of the side chain residues. This progress will
be reviewed by providing an overview of the strategies that have been employed in
studying this problem and the major conclusions that have been reached. However,
many important issues, especially related to the regulation of hemicellulose biosynthesis
still need to be elucidated. Some of these issues and our approaches to resolving them
will be presented.
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