Bound Volume Number
1
Degree Type
Honors Capstone Project
Date of Submission
Spring 5-1-2015
Capstone Advisor
Dr. Heather Coleman
Honors Reader
Dr. James Hougland
Capstone Major
Biology
Capstone College
Arts and Science
Audio/Visual Component
no
Keywords
bioethanol production, biofuels production
Capstone Prize Winner
no
Won Capstone Funding
yes
Honors Categories
Sciences and Engineering
Subject Categories
Biochemistry | Biotechnology | Cell Biology | Genetics
Abstract
Plants with polysaccharide-rich secondary cell walls have great potential as a source of carbohydrates for bioethanol production. However, the presence of phenolic lignin inhibits the isolation of bioethanol precursors cellulose and hemicellulose from the secondary cell wall. Recent studies have linked nitrogen availability to secondary cell wall development and composition, making nitrogen metabolism genes an interesting target in the improvement of plant cell walls for biofuels production. Plants use a nitrogen assimilation pathway to convert inorganic nitrogen sources into organic sources, included amino acids, which play key roles in metabolism and cell wall development. Asparagine synthetase (AS), a key enzyme involved in the nitrogen assimilation pathway, produces asparagine from aspartate and either glutamine or ammonium. As asparagine is one of the major translocatable forms of nitrogen in poplar, AS has been selected for analysis in this study. Initially, gene profiling of the AS gene family will be conducted using hybrid poplar as a model organism to elucidate AS expression patterns throughout the plant tissues. Primers for RT-PCR have been generated and optimized for analysis of relative expression levels of different tissues at different developmental stages to localize where and when AS is most highly expressed. Transgenic poplar harboring AS are being regenerated and will be assessed for changes in development, growth and cell wall chemistry and structure. Nitrogen fertilization resulted in a significant difference in growth between no nitrogen and low nitrogen treatments in P39 hybrid poplar, but not between any other treatments. There was a difference in growth between 717 and P39 poplar hybrids, where the 717 hybrids grew to be statistically significantly taller. The results of this project will be used in the development of a model of how nitrogen assimilation impacts cell wall formation in poplar.
Recommended Citation
Murray, Kristopher, "Overexpression and gene profiling of asparagine synthetase in hybrid poplar" (2015). Honors Capstone Projects - All. 822.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/822
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
