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Intellectual Property Office

Golgi Nucleotide Sugar Transporters as Tools for Cell Wall Modification 2013-092

APPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY:

  • Feedstocks for biofuel production
  • Non-plant glycosylation

ADVANTAGES:

  • Engineers plant cell wall composition by manipulating sugar substrates
  • Offers pathway to optimizing plant cell walls for sugar content

ABSTRACT:

This Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) invention engineers plants by specifically modifying nucleotide sugar transport into the Golgi lumen.  In contrast to approaches used so far, the JBEI approach allows availability of certain substrates to be modulated, i.e., by varying transport rates, as well as targeting of more than one glycosyltransferase activity and different polymers at the same time. These advantages are achieved through regulation at an earlier step than the assembly of cell wall polymers.

This invention will be useful to engineer bioenergy plants with a cell wall composition that makes their sugars more easily accessible. This will be interesting for a variety of industries, especially biofuels or sugar production. The invention could be useful for developing plants for other purposes, specifically for feed and forage.

The invention can also be useful in modulating the supply of component parts for synthetic biology approaches in other organisms. For example, UDP-GaIA and UDP-Rha transporters are not present in yeast.  Generation of glycosylated proteins or polysaccharides with GaIA or Rha in such an organism would be dependent on the availability of transporters.

STATUS: Patent pending. Available for license or collaborative research.

DEVELOPMENT STAGE: To date, the JBEI researchers have identified more than 25 transporters with specific activity for 12 different nucleotide sugars.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Rautengarten, C., Ebert, B., Moreno, I., Temple, H., Herter, T., Link, B., Doñas-Cofré, D., Moreno, A., Saéz-Aguayo, S., Blanco, F., Mortimer, J. C., Schultink, A., Reiter, W.-D., Dupree, P., Pauly, M., Heazlewood, J. L., Scheller, H. V., Orellana, A. “The Golgi localized bifunctional UDP-rhamnose / UDP-galactose transporter family of Arabidopsis,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 111, no. 31, 11563-11568, August 5, 2014.

Yarris, L. “How Sweet It is: New Tool for Characterizing Plant Sugar Transporters Developed at Joint BioEnergy Institute,” Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, News Center, July 28, 2014.

REFERENCE NUMBER: 2013-092