Abstract:

The main aim is enzyme discovery from 8000 hybrid aspen EST-sequences for their eventual use in fibre engineering. The stepwise selection scheme includes:

1. Identification of genes highly expressed during wood formation using the microarray technology for rnRNA expression profiling,
2. Novel bioinformatics software for sensitive analysis of distant evolutionary relationships and modular structures of selected enzymes,
3. Heterologous expression and enzymatic characterization of selected enzymes,
4. Fibre analysis of Arabidopsis mutants in orthologous genes by reverse genetics,
5. Protein expression, localization and fibre analyses in transgenic aspen with up/doweregulated expression of selected genes,
6. Micropulping of selected fibre samples to correlate the enzymatic activities with final product properties.

Contacts

Coordinator

• Tuula TEERI / Royal Institute of Technology Department of Biotechnology / SWEDEN

EC Scientific Officer

• Alexandros ARABATZIS / European Commission DG Research Theme 1 Key Action 5.3 / BELGIUM

Participant

• Bernard HENRISSAT / AFMB-CNRS - UMR6098 Architecture et Fonction des Macromolecules Biologiques / FRANCE
• Hugues DRIGUEZ / CNRS-CERMAV FRANCE
• Antoni PLANAS / Institut Quimic de Sarria Department of Organic Chemistry / SPAIN
• Maureen McCANN / John Innes Centre UNITED KINGDOM
• Mikael LINDSTRÖM / STFI AB SWEDEN
• Bjorn SUNDBERG / Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet (SLU) SWEDEN
• University of Gent Department of Plant Systems Biology / BELGIUM