FuncFiber is a Formas centre of excellence in wood science. FuncFiber aims to unravel the function of genes underlying the structure and chemistry of wood fibers. The FuncFiber consortium consists of Swedish research groups from Umeå Plant Science Centre, Umeå University, the Wood Ultrastructure Research Centre and the Royal Institute of Technology with expertise in wood biology and chemistry and is collaborating with the Forest Biotechnology company SweTree Technologies. FuncFiber will produce transgenic lines, analytical databases, novel chemical tools and prediction models for wood properties, and in-depth knowledge about gene function in wood formation. FuncFiber will deliver knowledge that can be exploited in forest tree breeding.

Program outline

FuncFiber is an interdisciplinary research program that takes advantage of poplar as a model species following the outline shown in the figure below. Scientists at Umeå Plant Science Centre (UPSC) will use their expertise and unique information on wood formation and gene expression to select candidate genes hypothesized to be important for different aspects of wood properties (Identification of Genes). SweTree Technologies (STT) will make a substantial contribution to the program by producing thousands of transgenic trees, and use their FuncWoodExplorer tool to initially screen for effects on growth and wood properties (Gene Function/Wood Properties I). From this large databank, genotypes will be carefully selected in collaboration between STT and UPSC scientists and delivered to the UPSC groups who will be responsible for semi-high throughput analysis of their plant material using technical platforms at UPSC and Dept. of Chemistry at Umeå University (Gene Function/Wood Properties II). The large amount of data will be analyzed with chemometrical approaches (Project 1) with a final goal to create models of wood properties from high throughput fingerprinting technology. The collective output from this effort will result in an extremely valuable tree database, "FuncFiber 100". Project 2, Project 3 and Project 4 will have as a subtask to develop methods for using FT-IR, NMR and mass spectrometry for chemical characterisation and this knowledge will feed back to Project 1. The most interesting lines emerging from "FuncFiber 100" will be selected by the research groups and subjected to in-depth analysis (Project 5, Project 6, Project 7, Project 8, Project 9 and Project 10). In-depth chemical information will be obtained from Project 2, Project 3 and Project 4 while Project 11 will assay fiber ultrastructure and chemical surface immunoprofiling, and Project 12 the function of enzymes causing altered phenotypes. Project 13 will contribute with a proteomic database in wood-forming tissues and information on differentially expressed proteins in different genotypes.