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The plant cell wall (PCW) represents the most abundant renewable biomass resource for lignocellulosic ethanol production. Economical and efficient degradation of PCW to fermentable sugars is an essential subprocess during lignocellulosic ethanol production. At present, the recalcitrance of PCW to various pretreatments and enzymatic hydrolysis makes the PCW degradation unacceptably expensive. Engineering cell wall-degrading enzymes into growing plants provides a promising solution to lower the PCW degradation cost and increase its degradation efficiency for lignocellulosic ethanol production. Avoiding damage by the expressed biomass-degrading enzymes to growing plants is the key to successful use of this method. Two modern biological technologies can be used to solve this problem. One is to engineer a thermoregulated intein-modified cell wall-degrading enzyme into growing plants. The other is to use the genetimed expression technique. This editorial will give a brief discussion of opportunities and challenges of engineering cell wall-degrading enzymes into growing plants for improvement of lignocellulosic ethanol production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Heavy metals pollution is one of the most challenging problems to the environment and agricultural soils in recent decades. The purpose of the present work was to elucidate the effects of vanadium (V) on growth, V uptake, protein content and enzymes activity to sort out the V-tolerant and the sensitive genotypes of chickpea under hydroponic conditions. Methods: The activities of antioxidant enzymes (SOD, CAT, POD, and GSH, MDA) and protein contents were determined by using UV-1600 Spectrophotometer, and V concentration was determined by using GFAAS (GTA 120). Results: The findings show that V significantly increased the enzymes activities in all chickpea genotypes however, V significantly reduced the protein contents, and more accumulation of V was observed in roots than shoots in all genotypes. The plant biomass and lengths of roots and shoots were also significantly reduced by V. Moreover, NHVO caused more toxicity than NaVO. Conclusions: The previous studies report that higher activities of enzymes increase the tolerance of plants against stress. The obtained data of present study indicated that Noor-2009 and C-44 are tolerant and G-1 and Balkasar are sensitive genotypes of chickpea against V stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]