PLANT CELL WALL

The plant cell wall is an outermost layer of cell that has a complex and dynamic structure, with a central role in plant growth, development, physiology and defense. The plant cell wall is divided into two cell wall layers: primary and secondary walls which are composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin, lignin and structural proteins. These plant cell wall components are synthesized and assembled inside the cell, secreted towards cell surface and cross-linked to form the plant cell wall matrix. The composition and structure of the plant cell wall matrix vary depending on cell types. The primary focus of our group is  1. To identify the protein or protein-complexes involved in the plant cell wall biosynthesis 2. To elucidate the interactions between plant cell wall components 3. To tailor the plant cell wall composition making it amenable for degradation during biofuel production. To achieve these goals, we are using Arabidopsis as a plant model system that has a plethora of genetic tools available. We select the genes based on bioinformatics and molecular genomics approach to perform their functional and biochemical characterization. We perturb the gene function using gene-editing tools and analyze the plant cell wall phenotype using structural and compositional characterization methods. The desired plant cell wall mutants are further tested to understand the effect on polysaccharide digestibility and fermentation. The strategies developed in this project are translated to manipulate lignocellulosic biomass from bioenergy and agricultural crops.