Tailoring poplar lignin without yield penalty by combining a null and haploinsufficient CINNAMOYL-CoA REDUCTASE2 allele

Barbara De Meester, Barbara Madariaga Calderón, Lisanne de Vries, Jacob Pollier, Geert Goeminne, Jan Van Doorsselaere, Mingjie Chen, John Ralph, Ruben Vanholme and Wout Boerjan ()
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Barbara De Meester: Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University
Barbara Madariaga Calderón: Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University
Lisanne de Vries: Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University
Jacob Pollier: VIB Metabolomics Core
Geert Goeminne: VIB Metabolomics Core
Jan Van Doorsselaere: Higher Institute for Nursing and Biotechnology, VIVES University College
Mingjie Chen: University of Wisconsin-Madison
John Ralph: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ruben Vanholme: Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University
Wout Boerjan: Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Lignin causes lignocellulosic biomass recalcitrance to enzymatic hydrolysis. Engineered low-lignin plants have reduced recalcitrance but often exhibit yield penalties, offsetting their gains in fermentable sugar yield. Here, CRISPR/Cas9-generated CCR2(−/*) line 12 poplars have one knockout CCR2 allele while the other contains a 3-bp deletion, resulting in a 114I115A-to-114T conversion in the corresponding protein. Despite having 10% less lignin, CCR2(−/*) line 12 grows normally. On a plant basis, the saccharification efficiency of CCR2(−/*) line 12 is increased by 25–41%, depending on the pretreatment. Analysis of monoallelic CCR2 knockout lines shows that the reduced lignin amount in CCR2(−/*) line 12 is due to the combination of a null and the specific haploinsufficient CCR2 allele. Analysis of another CCR2(−/*) line shows that depending on the specific CCR2 amino-acid change, lignin amount and growth can be affected to different extents. Our findings open up new possibilities for stably fine-tuning residual gene function in planta.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18822-w

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