Faiz Ahmad

By Ghulam Mustafa, Faiz Ahmad Joyia, Sultana Anwar, Aqsa Parvaiz and Muhammad Sarwar Khan

Sugarcane, not only fulfills 70% of world sugar needs but is also a prime potential source of bioethanol. It is majorly grown in tropical and subtropical regions. Researchers have improved this grass to great extent and have developed energy cane with ability to accumulate up to 18% sucrose in its Culm. Improvement of this crop is impeded by its complex genome, low fertility, long production cycle and susceptibility to various biotic and abiotic stresses. Biotechnological interventions hold great promise to address these impediments paving way to get improved sugarcane crop. Further, being vegetatively propagated in most of the agroecological regions, it has become more attractive plant to work with. This chapter highlights, how advanced knowledge of omics (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics) can be employed to improve sugarcane crop. In addition, potential role of in vitro techniques and transgenic technology has also been discussed for developing improved sugarcane clones with enhanced sugar recovery.

Part of the book: Sugarcane

By Muhammad Sarwar Khan, Ghulam Mustafa and Faiz Ahmad Joyia

Chloroplasts are highly organized cellular organelles after master organelle nucleus. They not only play a central role in photosynthesis but are also involved in several crucial cellular activities. Advancements in molecular biology and transgenic technology have further groomed importance of the organelle, and they are the most ideal ones for the expression of transgene. No doubt, limitations are there, but still research is advancing to resolve those. Certain valuable traits have been engineered for improved agronomic performance of crop plants. Industrial enzymes and therapeutic proteins have been expressed using plastid transformation system. Synthetic biology has been explored to play a key role in engineering metabolic pathways. Further, producing dsRNA in a plant’s chloroplast rather than in its cellular cytoplasm is more effective way to address desired traits. In this chapter, we highlight technological advancements in chloroplast biotechnology and its implication to develop biosafe engineered plants.

Part of the book: Transgenic Crops

By Muhammad Saeed, Ghulam Mustafa, Faiz Ahmad Joyia, Aneela Shadab and Aqsa Parvaiz

Advances in plant biotechnology and microbial genetics are speeding up because of the urgent need to provide a steady supply of resources. Growing cost of crude oil is having a negative impact on economies throughout the globe. Just biodiesel and bioethanol have been recognized as viable fossil fuel replacements. Chemical catalysis is primary way to synthesize biodiesel, besides enzymatic and microbial methods also play important role in biodiesel synthesis. These processes may play a significant part in the replacement of petroleum-based diesel in the future. The growth of sustainable, economically feasible biotechnological tools for the synthesis of biodiesel requires strong collaboration among several disciplines. In this age, lipases are the preferred enzymes for producing methyl esters (FAME), which are significant biological objects in biodiesel, from fatty acid esters (FAE) derived from fats and oils. It has also been shown that designed whole-cell microorganisms may directly produce FAE (MicroDiesel). The expensive cost of the biocatalyst continues to be a barrier to current enzymatic procedures, although advancements have recently been achieved, enabling the first synthetic enzymatic biodiesel synthesis. The fabrication of biodiesel which is enzymatic is primarily desirable due to the initial materials (waste frying oils, oils that were having high water content, etc.), where standard interesterification which is chemical is seldom applicable.

Part of the book: Advanced Biodiesel

By Faiz Ahmad Joyia, Ghulam Mustafa and Muhammad Sarwar Khan

Plastids have emerged as pivotal regulators of plant’s response to biotic and abiotic stresses. Chloroplasts have the ability to synthesize a variety of pigments, secondary metabolites, and phytohormones which help plant cells to withstand adverse conditions. Further, plastids communicate with the nucleus and other cellular organelles for the acquisition of essential molecules to survive under unfavorable conditions. They act as environmental sensors which not only synthesize molecules for stress tolerance but also induce nucleus-encoded genes for stress resilience. Senescence is a key developmental process in this context and plays an important role in the release of essential nutrients. Chloroplast proteolytic machinery plays a crucial role in the degradation or remodeling of plastid proteins resulting in the generation of numerous endogenous peptides which are present in the plant secretome. Plastid chaperone system is also activated for the repair/refold of damaged proteins resulting in improved tolerance to stresses. Autophagy is a conserved process that involves large-scale breakdown of chloroplast through piecemeal degradation and chlorophagy. The piecemeal degradation occurs through Rubisco-containing bodies (RCBs) and senescence-associated vacuoles (SAVs), whereas chlorophagy targets chloroplasts as a whole. Though information about chloroplast recycling is limited, the present work provides a comprehensive review on chloroplast recycling and its role in stress mitigation and adaptation in climate change scenarios.

Part of the book: Chloroplast Structure and Function [Working title]