Methods of Using Acyl-Coenzymea-Binding Proteins to enhance drought and flooding tolerance in transgenic plants
- Field
- Transgenic Plants
- Patent
- IP00404
Key Problem and Market Opportunity
- Drought stress is one of the biggest environmental threats to agriculture and human beings.
- Drought is a major stress to plants and it occurs when the total transpiration rate exceeds water uptake in plant cells
- Crops are especially susceptible to drought during flowering, and without flowers there would be no fruit and seeds (grain) which form the harvest in a majority of crops.
- Global warming further aggravates the problems related to drought.
- Thus, there is a need to identify genes that confer drought tolerance to create transgenic plants (especially crops) with improved ability to survive water deficit stress.
Key Advantages of the Technology
- A new combined approach in overcoming both drought and flooding stresses by overexpression of Arabidopsis Acyl-CoA-Binding Protein 2 in water-sensitive crops including rice which is the staple crop in Asia.
- Arabidopsis overexpressing ACBP2 (ACBP2-OXs) shows improved drought tolerance by accumulation of ABA-mediated reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in guard cells, thereby promoting stomatal closure, reducing water loss and improving drought tolerance
- Beta-glucuronidase (GUS) assays verified that ACBP2pro:GUS is expressed in guard cells, supporting ACBP2-associated upregulation of ROS production in guard cells
- The current invention can be applied to provide for plant parts, that include for example, fruits, leaves, tubers, seeds, flowers, stems, roots, and all other anatomical parts of the modified plant wherein the ACBP2 polypeptide is expressed.
- Further, the invention could be applied to transformed plants, that could include transgenic or transplastomic Arabidopsis, tomato, tobacco, cotton, corn, and rice plants.
- Additionally, the invention provides for vectors that can be designed such that it includes a promotor or that it will be expressed under the control of a plant's own endogenous promoter
- Also, the invention includes a method for screening for ACBP2-like sequences or variants, which confer drought tolerance to plants.
Potential Product and Services
- Provide vectors that confer drought tolerance to transgenic plants and plant material
- Provide transgenic plant and plant material with enhanced drought tolerance, and method of making them.
- Provide methods for screening for genes that confer drought tolerance to plants
Development status and IP Strength
- EP granted patent number 2773765
- China granted patent number ZL201280053262.3