Researchers have just found a method to make altering plant DNA easier than ever — a development that could lead to crops optimized for making biofuel, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reported.
Biofuel is an incredible emerging field in energy technology. Using plant products or food waste — even something as simple as peanut shells — researchers can create fuels that do all the same jobs once reserved for petroleum-based fuels such as gasoline and diesel. They can even power airplanes.
However, scientists are still hard at work developing the most efficient, cost-effective methods to produce that biofuel. Altering crops to be better at making biofuel and other plant-based products could be key to this industry.
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A team of researchers that includes scientists from Berkeley Lab has developed a new approach using a bacterium called Agrobacterium tumefaciens, Berkeley Lab revealed. In the wild, Agrobacterium is a disease that causes tumors on plants, including many crops. However, it achieves that result by injecting its own DNA into plant cells.
That ability makes it perfect for "transformation," the process of injecting new DNA into plants in a lab. Researchers can make all kinds of changes to existing plant species this way — including making them better at producing substances that are useful in the biofuel process.
"The current plant transformation approach is slow and stands as a significant bottleneck in the push to develop biology-based fuels and materials that aren't derived from petroleum," lead researcher Patrick Shih said. "With our research, we've been able to improve our ability to introduce DNA into plant genomes. And by being able to transform plants and fungi more efficiently, we can improve our ability to make biofuels and bioproducts."
That could lead to fuel that's cheaper to buy and cleaner to burn, making this a win for consumers and the planet.
One barrier is that Agrobacterium doesn't work on every plant, Berkeley Lab said. However, where it does work, Shih and his team hope the breakthrough will give researchers finer control over the transformation process.
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