Advanced plant cell biotechnology

The lectures given by Paolo Pesaresi will first focus on the technical tools and theoretical basis of plant/algae biotechnological improvements for biofuel or food production. The different constructs for plant and algae genetic engineering together with the molecular basis of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation are discussed. The different elements of expression vectors, including constitutive and inducible promoters, enhancers, reporter genes, replication origin and marker genes, together with the strategies to create marker-free transgenes are described. Then the organisms and the strategies used to produce biofuels of first, second and third generation are taken into consideration, with several examples of transgenic plants and algae with improved biofuel production capacity. Finally, we will examine plant traits modified by transgenesis or mutagenesis which are already on the market or which are likely to be commercially available in the near future: herbicide tolerance, pest resistance, improved nutritional content...etc.
In the second part, Piero Morandini will approach two fundamental questions of metabolic engineering: 1) which factors regulate metabolic fluxes and intermediate concentrations and 2) which strategy /target works better to modify the yields in a certain product. In order to tackle the questions, we shall make use of the tools provided by the Metabolic Control Analysis theory (elasticity, flux and concentration control coefficients). We shall discuss the interplay of supply and demand of metabolic intermediates as well as the evidence in favour of the so-called 'parallel activation' to increase fluxes and the implications for manipulation strategies. Several case studies (and the relative successes and failures) of plant biotechnology will be discussed, among which the manipulation of starches, sugars, lipids, vitamins, pesticides, amino acids, and the inactivation of allergens and toxins.