New biotechnology enables any plant to become a source of food

A team at Virginia Tech has turned cellulose into starch, a process that may take nutrients from plants that are not traditionally considered food The study was led by Y.H Percival Zhang, an associate professor of biosystems engineering at the school of agriculture and life sciences and the school of engineering It is predicted that by 2050, the earth's population will exceed 9 billion, and starch is one of the most important ingredients in human food, providing 20% - 40% of the daily intake of calories The research team led by Professor Zhang may help solve the problem of food and clothing for all the world's population in the future The results of the study were published this week in a preview edition of the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAs) Cellulose is an important component of plant cell wall and the most common carbohydrate on the earth The new technology opens the door to making food from any plant, reducing the need for food crops, thereby reducing the land resources, fertilizers, pesticides and large amounts of irrigation water needed to grow them Professor Zhang's research team prepared amylose, which will not be degraded during digestion, and is a high-quality source of edible fiber Amylose has been shown to reduce the risk of obesity and diabetes This discovery is expected to be applied in many ways, not just in the food system "In addition to being a food source, starch can also be used to make edible and biodegradable transparent preservative films for food packaging," Zhang said "It can even be used as a storage carrier for high-density hydrogen, which can solve the problem of hydrogen storage and distribution." Zhang et al Used a new processing method, including the use of cascading enzymes to convert cellulose into amylose "Cellulose and starch have the same chemical formula," Zhang said The difference is just the chemical bond Our idea is to break the chemical bond of cellulose with enzyme cascade reaction, and then recombine it into starch " In the new method, cellulose is extracted from non food plants (such as corn straw, i.e the stalk, leaf and skin left after corn harvest), about 30% of which is converted into amylose, and the rest is hydrolyzed into glucose to produce ethanol Moreover, this process works for any plant cellulose This biological process is called "simultaneous enzymatic biotransformation and microbial fermentation" It is easy to carry out large-scale industrial production Moreover, the process is environmentally sound because it does not require expensive equipment, high-temperature heating or chemical reagents, and does not produce any waste The key enzyme in the reaction will be fixed on magnetic nanoparticles, which can be easily recovered by magnetic field after the reaction Professor Zhang designed the experiment and conceived a new concept of "cellulose starch conversion" He and Hongge Chen, a visiting scholar at Virginia Tech University, are the inventors of the cellulose starch biotransformation process At present, a temporary patent application is pending for the invention China you, a postdoctoral student at Virginia Tech, has done most of the research with Professor Zhang The research was funded by the Department of biosystems engineering, Virginia Tech University Additional research resources include the biosign and bioprocessing Research Center, the shell gamechanger program, the U.S Department of energy bioenergy Science Center) and the Department of chemistry, genetic science, bioscience and basic energy office of the Ministry of energy Part of henki Chen's research funding also comes from the support of the China Scholarship Fund Management Committee.