www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

Researchers for the first time have deciphered the genetic code of a tree,
which could lead to new varieties better at producing wood, paper and fuel,
September 2006.

The work could vastly increase cultivation of the black cottonwood, a
fast-growing poplar already used by the timber and paper industries. Details
of the analysis of the tree's DNA, performed by dozens of researchers in
eight countries, appear this week in the journal Science.

Today, the black cottonwood is still considered "wild," even though it's
grown for lumber and pulp. Fifteen years from now, fully domesticated
varieties of the tree, optimally tuned to grow faster and longer, better
resist insects and disease and require less water and nutrients, could be
growing on tree farms across the U.S., researchers said.

To create such poplars, researchers first must hunt among the tree's more
than 45,500 genes to understand how they control its growth. Doing so can
allow later tinkering, including selective breeding and genetic manipulation
to bring out desirable traits. Already, they have found 93 genes associated
with the production of cellulose and lignin, which form the walls of plant
cells.

One goal is to create a poplar variety that can be used as a source of
ethanol, which can be burned as fuel. Ethanol is more expensive and
difficult to produce from wood than it is from crops such as corn.

Researchers also would like to create poplar varieties to soak up even more
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and lessen the effect of the gas on
global warming.

The black cottonwood is the third plant, after rice and a weed called
Arabidopsis thaliana, to have its genome sequence published. Comparing their
respective genomes is expected to shed light on their separate evolutionary
paths, researchers said.

The team isolated the sequenced DNA from a poplar tree growing along the
Nisqually River in Washington state.

More than three dozen researchers from the U.S., Austria, Belgium, Canada,
Finland, France, Germany and Sweden were led by Gerald Tuskan of Oak Ridge
National Laboratory in Tennessee.

www.checkbiotech.org

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