The April 2019 issue of Current Opinion in Biotechnology features a series of papers focused on plant biotechnology and lignin bioengineering, including several familiar faces at Great Lakes Bioenergy. The special issue was co-edited by John Ralph, GLBRC researcher and UW–Madison professor of biochemistry and biological systems engineering, and Wout Boerjan, a professor of plant biotechnology and bioinformatics at Ghent University in Belgium.
“Lignin is increasingly considered as a valuable source of aromatic building blocks for the chemical industry,” Ralph says in an introductory editorial. “It is particularly timely to publish a special issue on lignin biosynthesis and its engineering, given the depth and breadth of amazing breakthroughs in fundamental understanding and applications that have occurred in recent years.”
The April 2019 issue includes four papers and an editorial co-authored by GLBRC researchers:
Editorial overview: Plant biotechnology – lignin engineering
Wout Boerjan and John Ralph
Lignin biosynthesis and its integration into metabolism
Ruben Vanholme, Barbara De Meester, John Ralph, Wout Boerjan
Lignin structure and its engineering
John Ralph, Catherine Lapierre, Wout Boerjan
Tailor-made trees: engineering lignin for ease of processing and tomorrow’s bioeconomy
Elizabeth L Mahon, Shawn D Mansfield
The transport of monomers during lignification in plants: anything goes but how?
Mendel Perkins, Rebecca A Smith, Lacey Samuels
Browse the full April 2019 issue.