Multicellular living organisms and unmodified parts thereof and – Method of introducing a polynucleotide molecule into or... – The polynucleotide alters plant part growth
Patent
1997-10-20
2000-06-20
Fox, David T.
Multicellular living organisms and unmodified parts thereof and
Method of introducing a polynucleotide molecule into or...
The polynucleotide alters plant part growth
536 236, 435 691, 4353201, 435419, 435440, 435468, 800276, 800298, 800306, C12N 1529, C12N 1582, C12N 504, A01H 500
Patent
active
060779942
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to the genetic control of flowering in plants and the cloning and expression of genes involved therein. More particularly, the invention relates to the cloning and expression of the CONSTANS (CO) gene of Arabidopsis thaliana, and homologues from other species, including Brassica napus and manipulation and use of the gene in plants.
Efficient flowering in plants is important, particularly when the intended product is the flower or the seed produced therefrom. One aspect of this is the timing of flowering: advancing or retarding the onset of flowering can be useful to farmers and seed producers. An understanding of the genetic mechanisms which influence flowering provides a means for altering the flowering characteristics of the target plant. Species for which flowering is important to crop production are numerous, essentially all crops which are grown from seed, with important examples being the cereals, rice and maize, probably the most agronomically important in warmer climatic zones, and wheat, barley, oats and rye in more temperate climates. Important seed products are oil seed rape and canola, sugar beet, maize, sunflower, soyabean and sorghum. Many crops which are harvested for their roots are, of course, grown annually from seed and the production of seed of any kind is very dependent upon the ability of the plant to flower, to be pollinated and to set seed. In horticulture, control of the timing of flowering is important. Horticultural plants whose flowering may be controlled include lettuce, endive and vegetable brassicas including cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower, and carnations and geraniums.
Arabidopsis thaliana is a facultative long day plant, flowering early under long days and late under short days. Because it has a small, well-characterized genome, is relatively easily transformed and regenerated and has a rapid growing cycle, Arabidopsis is an ideal model plant in which to study flowering and its control.
We have discovered that one of the genes required for this response to photoperiod is the CONSTANS or CO gene, also called FG. We have found that plants carrying mutations of this gene flower later than their wild-types under long days but at the same time under short days, and we conclude, therefore, that the CO gene product is involved in the promotion of flowering under long days.
Putterill et al, Mol. Gen. Genet. 239: 145-157 (1993) describes preliminary cloning work which involved chromosome walking with yeast artificial chromosome (YAC) libraries and isolation of 1700 kb of contiguous DNA on chromosome 5 of Arabidopsis, including a 300 kb region containing the gene CO. That work fell short of cloning and identification of the CO gene.
We have now cloned and sequenced the CO gene (Putterill et al., 1995), which is provided herein. Unexpected difficulties and complications were encountered which made the cloning harder than anticipated, as is discussed below in the experimental section.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleotide sequence encoding a polypeptide with CO function. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that "CO function" may be used to refer to the ability to influence the timing of flowering phenotypically like the CO gene of Arabidopsis thaliana (the timing being substantially unaffected by vernalisation), especially the ability to complement a co mutation in Arabidopsis thaliana, or the co phenotype in another species. CO mutants exhibit delayed flowering under long days, the timing of flowering being substantially unaffected by vernalisation (see, for example, Korneef et al. (1991)).
Nucleic acid according to the present invention may have the sequence of a CO gene of Arabidopsis thaliana, or be a mutant, derivative or allele of the sequence provided. Preferred mutants, derivatives and alleles are those which encode a protein which retains a functional characteristic of the protein encoded by the wild-type gene, espe
REFERENCES:
patent: 5589614 (1996-12-01), Bridges et al.
Molecular and General Genetics, vol. 239, 1993 Berlin, DE, pp. 145-157, Putterill, J., et al, Chromosome walking with YAC clones in Arabidopsis: isolation of 1700 kb of contiguous DNA cjhromosome 5, including a 300kb region containing the flowering-time gene CO.
The Plant Journal, vol.. 5, No. 2, Feb. 1994 pp. 261-272, Wester, L., et al., "Transgenic complementation of the hy3 phytochrome B mutation and response to PHYB gene copy number in Arabidopsis".
Plant Molecular Biology, vol. 26, Oct. 1994 pp. 657-665, Chung, Y-Y., et al., "Early flowering and reduced apical dominance result from ectopic expression of a rice MADS box gene".
Cell, vol. 80, Mar. 24, 1995 pp. 847-857, Putterill, J., et al., "The Constans gene of Arabidopsis promotes flowering and encodes a protein showing similarities to zinc finger transcription factor".
Plant Molecular Biology, vol. 25, Jun. 1994 pp 335-337, AN, G., "Regulatory genes controlling flowering time or floral organ development".
The Plant Cell, vol. 6, No. 1, Jan. 1994 pp. 75-83, Lee, I., et al., "Isolation of Luminidependens: a gene involved in the control of flowering time in Arabidopsis".
The Plant Cell, vol. 6, No. 1, Jan. 1994 pp. 1-3, CHASAN, R., "A time to flower".
Database WP1, Section Ch, Week 9243 Derwent Publications Ltd., London, GB; Class C06, AN 92-354683 & JP, A, 04 258 292 (Japan Tobacco Inc), Sep. 14, 1992.
EMBL Sequence Database Rel.41, Sep. 24, 1994, Accession No. Z37717, Morris, P.C., et al., "A thaliana transcribed sequence; clone YBY029; 5'end".
Hybond.TM. N+; positively charged nylon membrane. Amersham Life Science, Amersham: UK, pp. 1-8, 1992.
Barsby et al. Plant Cell Reports 5:101-103, 1986.
Law et al. pp. 47-68 In: Mol. Biol. Flowering, Jordan, B., ed., CAB: Wallingford, UK, 1993.
Coupland George M.
Putterill Joanna J.
Fox David T.
Plant Bioscience Limited
LandOfFree
Genetic control of flowering does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Genetic control of flowering, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Genetic control of flowering will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-1854941