BASF Plant Science GmbH (Ludwigshafen, DE) has found polynucleotides regulating high level tissue-preferred expressions that can be used to increase crop yield in a wide variety of plants.
The polynucleotides compositions include DNA constructs useful for plant transformation. BASF also developed methods for the expression of transgenes in plants using the tissue-preferred regulatory elements. According to U.S. Patent 20100043100, the method confers increased yield, increased stress tolerance, increased nutritional quality, increased nutritional value, increased or modified starch content, or increased or modified oil content of a seed or a sprout to a plant.
In grain crops of agronomic importance, seed formation is the ultimate goal of plant development. Seeds are harvested for use in food, feed, and industrial products. The utility and value of those seeds are determined by the quantity and quality of protein, oil, and starch contained therein. In turn, the quality and quantity of seed produced may be affected by environmental conditions at any point prior to fertilization through seed maturation. In particular, stress at or around the time of fertilization may have substantial impact on seed development.
Members of the grass family, which include the cereal grains, produce dry and one-seeded fruits. This type of fruit is, strictly speaking, a caryopsis but is commonly called a kernel or grain. A kernel or grain comprises a seed and its coat or pericarp. A seed comprises an embryo or germ, an endosperm enclosed by a nucellar epidermis and a seed coat. An embryo is the miniature progenitor of the next generation, containing cells for root and shoot growth of a new plant. It is also the tissue in which oil and proteins are stored in a kernel. An endosperm functions more as a nutritive tissue and provides the energy needed in the form of stored starch, proteins and oil needed for the germination and initial growth of the embryo.
According to inventors Senior Scientist at BASF Plant Science, L.L.C. Christopher Kafer (Raleigh, NC) and Research Project Manager at BASF Hanping Guan (Chapel Hill, NC), the method for increasing crop yield comprises the steps of :a) introducing into a plant cell or a plant the expression vector, wherein the operably linked nucleic acid encodes a polypeptide which are capable of conferring to a plant increased yield, increased stress tolerance, increased nutritional quality, increased nutritional value, increased or modified starch, or increased or modified oil content to the plant; and b) selecting transgenic plants, wherein the plants have increased yield, increased stress tolerance under stress conditions, increased nutritional quality, increased nutritional value, increased or modified starch content, or increased or modified oil content of a seed or a sprout of the plants, as compared to the wild type or null segregant plants.
There is a great need for novel DNA sequences that can be used for expression of selected transgenes in economically important plants. There is also a need for transcription regulating sequences that allow for expression in endosperm or kernel during seed development. The objective of the BASF scientists is to provide new and alternative regulatory sequences for endosperm-preferred or kernel-preferred expression. The objective is achieved by the BASF invention.
The transformed plant may be a plant selected from the group consisting of monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous plants. The plant can be from a genus selected from the group consisting of maize, wheat, rice, barley, oat, rye, sorghum, banana, and ryegrass. The plant can be from a genus selected from the group consisting of pea, alfalfa, soybean, carrot, celery, tomato, potato, cotton, tobacco, pepper, oilseed rape, beet, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce and Arabidopsis thaliana. In another embodiment, the transformed plant expresses an agronomically relevant or phenotypic trait.
Such traits include, but not limited to, oil quantity and quality, protein quality and quantity, amino acid composition, starch quality and quantity, increased feed content and value, increased food content and value, increased yield, increased stress tolerance or resistance, such as resistance or tolerance to drought, heat, chilling, freezing, excessive moisture, salt, oxidative stress, and nitrogen stress, herbicide resistance or tolerance, insect resistance or tolerance, disease resistance or tolerance, physical appearance, male sterility, female sterility, and the like.
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