Gene Profiling of Plant Cell Wall Biosynthesis for Genetic Enhancing Biomass Enzymatic Saccharification in Cereal Crops

Rice, wheat, corn, and sweet sorghum are four major cereal crops around the world. Over the past years, great efforts have been made to improve grain yields by using genetic breeding and biotechnology. For instance, the annual grain yield in 2014 year reached 6.76, 4.96 and 5.87 tons per hectare for rice, wheat, and corn in China (National data: http://data.stats.gov.cn/). Sweet sorghum has been considered as an ideal bioenergy crop for its high fermentable sugar content in stalk and degradable lignocellulose in bagasse with high tolerance to environmental stress. Those four cereal crops can provide large amount of lignocellulose residues, accounting for major biomass resources harvested in the farming fields all over the world. However, biomass residues are currently far from good applications, and alternatively some residues are burned in the field, leading to biomass waste and air pollution.

As fossil fuels are constantly used as major energy source, bioenergy has been considered as a renewable energy derived from biomass resources for heat, electricity, fuel and chemical products. Due to food security, however, bioenergy crops could not be allowed to grow in large arable lands, and lignocellulose-based residues of food crops are alternative source of biomass.