Multicellular living organisms and unmodified parts thereof and – Plant – seedling – plant seed – or plant part – per se – Higher plant – seedling – plant seed – or plant part
Patent
1996-12-20
1999-07-27
Fox, David T.
Multicellular living organisms and unmodified parts thereof and
Plant, seedling, plant seed, or plant part, per se
Higher plant, seedling, plant seed, or plant part
800274, 800278, 800287, 800288, 800298, 4353201, 435419, 435468, 536 236, 536 241, 536 2372, 536 2374, A01H 500, A01H 102, C12N 1582, C12N 1529
Patent
active
059293071
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a method of producing hybrid plants. More particularly this invention relates to the use of novel recombinant expression vectors to produce trangenic plants comprising a novel male-sterility/restorer system that facilitates the production of hybrid plants. The system uses a site-specific recombinase to excise a male sterility.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Hybrid plants have been demonstrated to be superior to inbred lines with respect to yield and vigor. The production of hybrid seed on a large scale is challenging because many crops have both male and female reproductive organs (stamen and pistil) on the same plant, either within a single flower or in separate flowers. This arrangement results in a high level of self pollination and makes large scale directed crosses between inbred lines difficult to accomplish.
To guarantee that outcrossing will occur during the production of hybrid seed, breeders have either manually or mechanically removed stamens from one parental line, or exploited male sterility mutations that disrupt pollen development. Manual emasculation is labor intensive and impractical for plants with small bi-sexual flowers.
Important crops like rice, corn, wheat are self-pollinating plants, and therefore there is a need to develop systems for pollination control to assist in the production of F1 hybrids. All currently available systems are based on the introduction of a male sterility trait to one parental plant followed by the introduction of a fertility-restorer gene, as a result of cross-pollination, to produce fertile hybrid plants.
Male reproductive processes in flowering plants occur in the anther. This organ is composed of several tissues and cell types, and is responsible for producing pollen grains that contain the sperm cells. A specialized anther tissue, the tapetum, plays an important role in pollen formation. The tapetum surrounds the pollen sac early in anther development, degenerates during the later stages of development and is not present as an organized tissue in the mature anther. The tapetum produces a number of proteins and other substances that either aid in pollen development or become components of the pollen outer wall. It is known that many male sterility mutations interfere with tapetum cell differentiation and/or function. Thus tapetal tissue is believed to be essential for the production of functional pollen grains.
Currently available male-sterile-based pollination systems are not satisfactory. In many cases, male sterility is unstable under different climatic conditions (Fan and Stefansson, 1986) and partial female sterility of the male-sterile plants and/or reversion to fertility of male-sterile plants has been observed. Furthermore, the restorer genes used to restore fertility to the male sterile lines have also been found to be unstable. In some cases, prominent morphological changes in the male-sterile flowers were evident (Denis et al., 1993).
Another approach to the control of fertility is based on the use of a cytoplasmic-male-sterility system. See, for example, Patterson, U.S. Pat. No. 3,861,079. However, reliance on a single cytoplasmic-male-sterile system for the production of all hybrid plants is undesirable because it leaves the entire hybrid stock vulnerable to plant pathogens. For example, extensive use of one corn cytotype, cmsT lead to an eptiphytic outbreak of Southern Corn Leaf Blight in the early 1970's. Thus, it is important to develop alternative methods to produce male sterile lines in plant species where only a single male-sterility system is available.
The present invention relates to a new method for making hybrid plants via a novel male-sterility/restorer system. The method incorporates into one plant line (line A) a male sterility system (an anther-specific promoter driving a suicidal gene) linked to a phenotypic trait (herbicide-resistance, seed coat color, seed plumpness, etc.). The phenotypic trait allows one to identify and maintain the male sterile progeny. Furthermore the male
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Hodges Thomas K.
Huq Enamul
Kononowicz-Hodges Halina
Lee Jang-Yong
Lyznik Leszek A.
Fox David T.
Purdue Research Foundation
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