Effects of transgenic expression of fungal hemicellulases in Arabidopsis

Plant cell walls represent an abundant and renewable resource. One barrier to using plant cell walls for biofuels, biomaterials and biochemicals is its resistance to enzymatic hydrolysis.A number of microorganisms, however, encode enzymes that can readily degrade linkage in plant cell walls. Two fungal hemicelullases were expressed in planta as means of cell wall engineering: Phanerochaete carnosa glucurnoyl esterase (PcGCE) and Aspergillus niger a-arabinofuranosidase (AnAF54). To understand the effects of transgene expression on the whole plant level, a currently under-explored aspect of cell wall engineering, the transcriptome of transgenic Arabidopsis lines was investigated. Focus was on stem tissue of different developmental states: regions with with rapid cell expansion and maturation (top stem), and regions characterized by cell wall fortification (mid stem).