Reprogrammed poplar trees can make key industrial chemical for biodegradable plastics

A team led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has engineered poplar trees to produce valuable chemicals that can be used to make biodegradable plastics and other products.

The modified trees were more tolerant of high salt levels in soil and were easier to break down for conversion into biofuels and other bioproducts.

The study, published in Plant Biotechnology Journal, shows that poplar trees, which are already useful as a bioenergy crop, can be reprogrammed at the genetic level to act as living factories for producing high-value materials.

This approach to making important raw materials could help establish a flexible domestic supply chain, potentially lowering costs and reducing reliance on imported specialty chemicals.

The team modified hybrid poplar trees to produce 2-pyrone-4,6-dicarboxylic acid (PDC) – a compound used to make durable, high-performance plastics and coatings. This compound is normally generated through complex chemical processes or by using bacteria and other microbes to break down biomass.

The Brookhaven team moved the microbial process into the plants by inserting five genes from naturally occurring soil microbes into hybrid poplar trees.

Image source: Brookhaven National Laboratory.