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Discovery of plant protein could boost biofuels production

The discovery of a protein used in chloroplast development could be utilised to tailor plants specifically for biofuels production, scientists are saying.

Scientists at Michigan State University (MSU) discovered the protein, trigalactosyldiacylglycerol 4 (TGD4), which will offer new insight into photosynthesis.

It is hoped that the protein could eventually be used to develop plants to be use exclusively for the production of biofuels.

Christoph Benning, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at MSU, said: "If the TGD4 protein is malfunctioning, the plant then accumulates oil in its leaves.

"If the plant is storing oil in its leaves, there could be more oil per plant, which could make production of biofuels such as biodiesel more efficient."

The research has been published in the August edition of journal The Plant Cell and it shows that plants which lack TGD4 will die before they enter the embryonic stage.

The US and Chinese governments have also announced an agreement to cooperate on biofuel production strategies.

The cosmetics firm Beiersdorf has recently hit back at research claiming that one of their products caused skin cancer in test mice as "clinically not relevant".