Doctoral Dissertations
Date of Award
8-2021
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Major
Food Science
Major Professor
Scott C. Lenaghan
Committee Members
C. Neal Stewart, Alessandro Occhialini, David White, Curtis Luckett
Abstract
Plastids represent a unique opportunity for plant biotechnology and synthetic biology. Their fundamental uses for photosynthesis, starch storage, and other processes can be exploited to benefit food production and other industries. In this work, we attempt to modulate these plastids in order to produce potato plants with beneficial characteristics for further use in synthetic biology. The first chapter of this dissertation involves genome-editing of the FtsZ1 gene, which is involved in plastid division. Plants were generated with large plastids and starch granules, and similar methods could be used to produce these plants without foreign DNA integration. The second chapter involves generating similarly large plastid plants that were used for chloroplast transformation. These plants could be potentially useful for the installation of large constructs via microinjection. The final chapter involves the generation of an alternative chloroplast transformation method, where plasmids are maintained within the organelle without integration to the plastome. Next generations of this method could be used to integrate specified genes, while allowing others to be only transiently expressed.
Recommended Citation
Pfotenhauer, Alexander C., "Alteration of potato plastids as platforms for biotechnology and synthetic biology. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2021.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/6491
Included in
Biotechnology Commons, Food Biotechnology Commons, Molecular Genetics Commons, Plant Biology Commons