A single eucalyptus gene reshapes how wood builds itself
Crop Improvement
The next time you notice how differently a eucalyptus trunk feels from an oak's, a gene like this one is part of the reason, and tweaking it could someday make trees easier to turn into paper or fuel with less energy and fewer chemicals.
Trees build their trunks out of a tough material called lignin, which is great for structure but a pain when we want to break wood down into paper, biofuel, or other products. Researchers found a gene in eucalyptus, called EgrARF10, that seems to help control how much lignin gets made and what other sugars end up in the wood. When they put an extra copy of this gene into poplar trees, the wood grew normally in size but had noticeably less lignin and more of certain sugars, suggesting the gene acts like a dial for wood chemistry.
Key Findings
EgrARF10 is a class C Auxin Response Factor found to be highly active in vessel and fusiform cells of eucalyptus wood-forming tissue, based on spatial and single-cell transcriptomic data
The gene is strongly linked to secondary cell wall biosynthetic genes and transcription factors in co-expression and multi-omic networks
Overexpressing EgrARF10 in hybrid poplar didn't change plant growth or shape but significantly reduced stem lignin and increased relative levels of D-glucose, D-xylose and D-mannose
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists found a gene in eucalyptus trees that helps control how much lignin (the tough, woody material) forms in cell walls. When they boosted this gene in poplar trees, the wood became less lignified and had different sugar content, hinting at new ways to engineer trees for paper, biofuel, or other wood products.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Eucalyptus grandis Auxin Response Factor 10 (EgrARF10) is associated with the modulation of secondary xylem cell wall chemistry
Abstract Auxin Response Factors (ARFs) are of vital importance in plant growth and vascular development. Class A ARFs are the core auxin-driven drivers of embryogenesis, vascular pattern developmen...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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Eucalyptus is a genus of more than 700 species of flowering plants in the family Myrtaceae. Most species of Eucalyptus are trees, often mallees, and a few are shrubs. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including Corymbia and Angophora, they are commonly known as eucalypts o...