Bioboost: Innovative application of plants

Sustainable and cost effective biorefinery of lignocellulose biomass for the production of biofuels and other higher value chemicals requires a large amount of enzymes. However, the cost of enzyme is a well-known bottleneck in present lignocellulose biorefinery. We propose here Bioboost, a research project building upon a previous "Greenzyme" concept, one of the 12 finalists during 2013 "new concept" competition but with some fresh input from our pilot experiments. Bioboost aims to develop a plant biotechnology platform for low cost production of key cell wall degrading enzymes (CWDEs) to boost biorefinery of lignocellulose biomass. We use tobacco, a non-food and non-feed crop (a primary CO2 binder), instead of energy demanding fermenter-based systems. Tobacco is an ideal choice for the production of key CWDEs because of its feasibility for genetic manipulation, excellent biomass (ca. 40 tons of leaf fresh weight/acre) and prolific seed production (ca. one million seeds per plant), thus hastening the time in which a product can be scaled up and brought to market.

For proof-of-principle, we will express enzymes comprising minimal cocktails (including endocellulases, cellobiohydrolases, beta-glucosidase, and lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases) screened and identified as optimal for converting pretreated lignocellulose substrates in our consortium partner Eijsink's laboratory.

Bioboost is organized in 6 workpackages (WPs) covering:

1. effective management and successful dissemination of project results to the relevant stakeholders (WP1 and WP6)
2. low cost production of key CWDEs in tobacco (WPs 2-3)
3. Functionality and impacts of tobacco produced recombinant CWDEs (WP4-5)

The WPs will be fulfilled by a consortium consisting of national and international partners with outstanding scientific expertise in plant genetic engineering, cell wall degrading enzymes and cell wall architecture, and an experienced industrial partner, Borregaard.