APPLICATION OF BIOTECHNOLOGY FOR FUTURE SUGAR INDUSTRY DIVERSIFICATION

Genetically engineering agricultural crops to produce the raw materials for the energy, manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries may well be the driving force behind the next economic revolution. The first experiments to develop sugarcane as a biofactory producing higher value products have been established. To determine the feasibility of using sugarcane as a biofactory, the three-gene pathway encoding the precursors of a biodegradable plastic, polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), was transformed into sugarcane callus tissue using the biolistic method. Preliminary results from both callus and leaves from young plantlets indicate that PHB is being produced. To significantly improve the amount of product produced, especially for bulk chemicals and pharmaceuticals, chloroplast transformation of sugarcane is also being developed.