Expediting cellulosic biofuels agenda: Production of high value-low volume co-products and lignin down-regulation of bioenergy crops

One barrel of oil contains 81% fuels (46% gasoline, 9% jet fuel, 26% diesel) and 19% petrochemical co-products (lubricants, paints, solvents, adhesives, wax, greases, tar, asphalt, paraffin wax and more). For cellulosic biofuels (ethanol and butanol) to become commercially profitable, the efforts should not only be to improve the efficiency and economics of biofuels production, but also to mimic the petro-industry model by self-producing of high value co-products including microbial heterologous cellulases and recombinant bio-pharmaceuticals in the non-food portions of cellulosic bioenergy crops.;Cellulases are needed to convert plant cellulose into fermentable sugars for biofuels. At present microbial cellulase mix are produced at cost of ;Another high-value co-product is human saliva secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor (hsSLPI) which is well known as an anti-HIV protein and as the reason that HIV is not transmitted via human saliva. Biologically active human SLPI can not be produced in E. coli due to SLPI's anti-microbial activity. This dissertation will present production of biologically active human SLPI in plant apoplast for preclinical testing.;Pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass is required to breakdown lignin in order to expose crop cellulose to cellulases. Depending of the method used, pretreatment processes cost ;Following the petro-industry model, co-production of high value recombinant co-products, and lignin down-regulation of bioenergy crops are expected to expedite commercialization of cellulosic biofuels.