Ectopic callose deposition into woody biomass modulates the nano-architecture of macrofibrils

Plant biomass plays an increasingly important role in the circular bioeconomy, replacing non-renewable fossil resources. Genetic engineering of this lignocellulosic biomass could benefit biorefinery transformation chains by lowering economic and technological barriers to industrial processing. However, previous efforts have mostly targeted the major constituents of woody biomass: cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Here we report the engineering of wood structure through the introduction of callose, a polysaccharide novel to most secondary cell walls. Our multiscale analysis of genetically engineered poplar trees shows that callose deposition modulates cell wall porosity, water and lignin contents and increases the lignin-cellulose distance, ultimately resulting in substantially decreased biomass recalcitrance. We provide a model of the wood cell wall nano-architecture engineered to accommodate the hydrated callose inclusions. Ectopic polymer introduction into biomass manifests in new physico-chemical properties and offers new avenues when considering lignocellulose engineering.Bourdon et al. demonstrate the possibility to ectopically synthesize callose, a polymer restricted to primary cell walls, into Arabidopsis and aspen secondary cell walls to manipulate their ultrastructure and ultimately reduce their recalcitrance

Research data supporting “Ectopic callose deposition into woody biomass modulates the nano-architecture of macrofibrils”

The repository is divided in distinct folders which contain the raw data necessary to produce each figure of the “Ectopic callose deposition into woody biomass modulates the nano-architecture of macrofibrils” manuscript. As such, each folder is named after the figure it is referring to, and often contains several subfolders distinguishing the different data sets necessary to produce each figure. Each subfolder name ends up with the initials of the main co-author(s) originating the data they contain. See the 'Repository_readme' file for a detailed description of this dataseto The UK High-Field Solid-State NMR Facility used in this research was funded by EPSRC and BBSRC (EP/T015063/1) as well as the University of Warwick including via part funding through Birmingham Science City Advanced Materials Projects 1 and 2 supported by Advantage West Midlands (AWM) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). We thank the Cambridge Advanced Imaging Center (CAIC) for providing access to their TEM resources and for technical assistance in imaging. The lignin analysis was supported by the Soluserre funding (Région Pays de la Loire, France). The authors acknowledge the funding received from the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) Strategic Science Investment Fund (Contract No. C0X41703, High-Value Biorefineries Portfolio) for supporting this work. FV acknowledges support from the Swedish Research Council (grants 621-2014-5295 and 2020-04720) and from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (through the Wallenberg Wood Science Centre). Work in the YBA lab is supported by the Leverhulme Trust (Grant RPG-2016-136) which funded S.A. and C.P. and the UKRI Future Leader Fellowship program (MR/T04263X/1). Work in the JJL lab is supported by a grant from the National Science Centre Poland awarded to JJL as part of the SONATINA 3 programme (project number 2019/32/C/NZ3/00392) and a grant from National Science Centre Poland awarded as part of SONATA 17 programme (project number 2021/43/D/NZ9/01978). MB was supported by the ERC Proof of Concept APPLICAL (2020-2022) and the HiLife Proof of Concept APPLICAL (2020-2021) grants. L.K. received funding from the SNSF (P2LAP3_178062) and a Marie Curie IEF (No. 795250). Work in the YH lab was supported by the Finnish CoE in Molecular Biology of Primary Producers (Academy of Finland CoE programme 2014–2019) decision n°. 271832, the Gatsby Foundation (GAT3395/PR3), the University of Helsinki (award 799992091) and the ERC Advanced Investigator Grant SYMDEV (No. 323052)