Expression of Exogenous - in Tobacco Enhances Cell Wall Biosynthesis and Biomass Production.

Improved cellulose biosynthesis and plant biomass represent important economic targets for several biotechnological applications including bioenergy and biofuel production. The attempts to increase the biosynthesis of cellulose by overexpressing CesAs proteins, components of the cellulose synthase complex, has not always produced consistent results. Analyses of morphological and molecular data and of the chemical composition of cell walls showed that tobacco plants (F1 line), stably expressing the CesA6 fused to GFP, exhibits a "giant" phenotype with no apparent other morphological aberrations. In the F1 line, all evaluated growth parameters, such as stem and root length, leaf size, and lignified secondary xylem, were significantly higher than in wt. Furthermore, F1 line exhibited increased flower and seed number, and an advance of about 20 days in the anthesis. In the leaves of F1 seedlings, the expression of primary (, , and ) was enhanced, as well as of proteins involved in the biosynthesis of non-cellulosic polysaccharides (xyloglucans and galacturonans, , ), cell wall remodeling ( and XTHs), and cell expansion ( and ). While in leaves the expression level of all secondary cell wall (, , and ) did not change significantly, both primary and secondary were differentially expressed in the stem. The amount of cellulose and matrix polysaccharides significantly increased in the F1 seedlings with no differences in pectin and hemicellulose glycosyl composition. Our results highlight the potentiality to overexpress primary in tobacco plants to enhance cellulose synthesis and biomass production.