Compositions and methods for producing fermentable carbohydrates

摘要

Provided herein are methods for producing fermentable sugar obtained from a plant tissue. The methods include providing transgenic plant material comprising one or more locked carbohydrates and contacting plant material with an enzyme capable of converting the locked carbohydrate into a fermentable sugar. The methods are useful for providing sugar or sugar pre-cursors for several industrial purposes including ethanol production. The invention also encompasses plants and plant parts that produce a lock enzyme to yield a locked carbohydrate, with the consequence of accumulating the locked carbohydrate in the plant. The invention also encompasses providing a key enzyme able to convert locked carbohydrates to fermentable sugars. Key enzymes can be provided by transgenic plants or plant parts, transgenic microbes, transgenic yeast, microbes or yeast.

主权项

1. A method comprising the steps of:
a) providing transgenic plant material comprising one or more locked carbohydrates and one or more key enzymes, wherein the one or more key enzymes is targeted away from the one or more locked carbohydrates; and b) processing said transgenic plant material under conditions sufficient for one or more key enzymes to convert one or more locked carbohydrates to fermentable sugar.