Low-cost Plant Propagation Bioreactor Development using Cacao

生物技术，生物化学和生物质工程计划的NSF奖项支持开发低成本生物反应器系统的工作，这些系统将提高利用组织培养提高农业植物生产力的能力。 除了优化生物反应器内的化学和环境条件的典型范例之外，本研究还试图证明使用控制多个基因表达的转录因子来控制植物发育的能力。 这些转录因子将使用农杆菌（Agrobacterium）递送至植物组织，农杆菌是一种已开发用于将DNA瞬时递送至培养的植物组织的细菌（在先前NSF支持下开发; BCS-0003926）。 与植物胚胎形成相关的基因将通过检查体细胞胚胎发生过程中的基因表达模式来鉴定。 诱导胚胎形成的概念将使用可可，巧克力的来源，由于其商业（和社会）价值。 除了提供一个教学案例研究，展示生物反应器设计和分子生物学的跨学科原则的使用，这项工作将产生数千种抗真菌植物，这些植物将分发给南美的小农。此外，低成本的生物反应器技术具有广泛的粮食和生物质作物的潜在应用。

This NSF award by the Biotechnology, Biochemical and Biomass Engineering program supports work to develop low-cost bioreactor systems that will enhance the ability to utilize tissue culture to improve agricultural plant productivity. In addition to the typical paradigm of optimizing the chemical and environmental conditions within the bioreactor, this research seeks to demonstrate the ability to control plant development using transcriptional factors that control the expression of multiple genes. These transcriptional factors will be delivered to the plant tissues using Agrobacterium, a bacteria that has been developed to transiently deliver DNA to cultured plant tissues (developed with previous NSF support; BCS-0003926). The genes associated with plant embryo formation will be identified by examining patterns of gene expression during somatic embryogenesis. The concept of inducing embryo formation will be implemented using Cacao, the source of chocolate, due to its commercial (and social) value. In addition to providing an instructional case study that demonstrates the use of interdisciplinary principles of bioreactor design and molecular biology, the effort will produce thousands of fungal resistant plants that will be distributed to smallholder farmers in South America. In addition, the low-cost bioreactor technology has potential applications to a broad range of food and biomass crops.