Callista Rakhmatov

Michigan State University | MSU · College of Agriculture and Natural Resources

Worldwide, there is a great concern on the impacts of climate change on agricultural productivity and global food security. The negative impacts of climate change, coupled with growing populations, are putting tremendous pressure on national governments and regional and international organizations to address the issues of enhancing agricultural pro...

During the last 40 years, the achievements in research and development of state agriculture have been highly satisfactory. Although agricultural revolution in the state has brought economic gains to farmers, second-generation problems in this sector have brought new challenges to farmers, scientists and other stakeholders. The major challenges are...

BACKGROUND: Production of cellulosic ethanol is still expensive compared with corn (maize) grain ethanol due to the high costs of bulk production of microbial cellulases. At least three cellulases including endo-cellulase, exo-cellulase and cellobiase are needed to convert cellulosic biomass into fermentable sugars. All these cellulases could be se...

BACKGROUND: Commercial conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to fermentable sugars for biofuels and chemical byproducts uses relatively expensive bulk production of biologically active cellulase enzymes, which could alternatively be achieved by using solar energy for direct production of these enzymes within feedstock crop cellulosic biomass.

The catalytic domain of Acidothermus cellulolyticus thermostable endoglucanase gene (encoding for endo-1,4-beta-glucanase enzyme or E1) was constitutively expressed in rice. Molecular analyses of T1 plants confirmed presence and expression of the transgene. The amount of E1 enzyme accounted for up to 4.9% of the plant total soluble proteins, and it...

Commercial conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to fermentable sugars requires inexpensive bulk production of biologically active cellulase enzymes, which might be achieved through direct production of these enzymes within the biomass crops. Transgenic corn plants containing the catalytic domain of Acidothermus cellulolyticus E1 endo-1,4-beta gluc...

Commercial production of ethanol from plant biomass sources employs enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose to glucose. Transgenic plants that can produce their own hydrolysis enzymes may offer an inexpensive and convenient system for the large-scale production of these enzymes. The catalytic domain of an endo-1,4-b-D-glucanase gene from the eubacterium,...

Commercial conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to fermentable sugars requires inexpensive bulk production of biologically active cellulase enzymes, which might be achieved through direct production of these enzymes within the biomass crops. Transgenic corn plants containing the catalytic domain of Acidothermus cellulolyticus E1 endo-1,4-β glucana...

The Arabidopsis flowering-repressor gene FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) is a developmental switch used to trigger floral induction after extended growth in the cold, a process termed vernalization. In vernalized plants, FLC becomes transcriptionally silenced through a process that involves an epigenetic mechanism. We identified recessive mutations designa...