106 results about "Plastid" patented technology

Disclosed are the uses of specific genes of the mevalonate and isoprenoid biosynthetic pathways, and of inactive gene sites (the pseudogene) to (1) enhance biosynthesis of isopentenyl diphosphate, dimethylallyl diphosphate and isoprenoid pathway derived products in the plastids of transgenic plants and microalgae, (2) create novel antibiotic resistant transgenic plants and microalgae, and (3) create a novel selection system and / or targeting sites for mediating the insertion of genetic material into plant and microalgae plastids. The specific polynucleotides to be used, solely or in any combination thereof, are publicly available from GeneBank and contain open reading frames having sequences that upon expression will produce active proteins with the following enzyme activities: (a) acetoacetyl CoA thiolase (EC 2.3.1.9), (b) 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) synthase (EC 4.1.3.5), (c) HMG-CoA reductase (EC 1.1.1.34), (d) mevalonate kinase (EC 2.7.1.36), (e) phosphomevalonate kinase (EC 2.7.4.2), (f) mevalonate diphosphate decarboxylase (EC 4.1.1.33), (g) isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP) isomerase (EC 5.3.3.2), and (h) phytoene synthase (EC 2.5.1.32).

Transgenic chloroplast technology could provide a viable solution to the production of Insulin-like Growth Factor I (IGF-I), Human Serum Albumin (HSA), or interferons (IFN) because of hyper-expression capabilities, ability to fold and process eukaryotic proteins with disulfide bridges (thereby eliminating the need for expensive post-purification processing). Tobacco is an ideal choice because of its large biomass, ease of scale-up (million seeds per plant), genetic manipulation and impending need to explore alternate uses for this hazardous crop. Therefore, all three human proteins will be expressed as follows: a) Develop recombinant DNA vectors for enhanced expression via tobacco chloroplast genomes b) generate transgenic plants c) characterize transgenic expression of proteins or fusion proteins using molecular and biochemical methods d) large scale purification of therapeutic proteins from transgenic tobacco and comparison of current purification / processing methods in E. coli or yeast e) Characterization and comparison of therapeutic proteins (yield, purity, functionality) produced in yeast or E. coli with transgenic tobacco f) animal testing and pre-clinical trials for effectiveness of the therapeutic proteins. Mass production of affordable vaccines can be achieved by genetically engineering plants to produce recombinant proteins that are candidate vaccine antigens. The B subunits of Enteroxigenic E. coli (LTB) and cholera toxin of Vibrio cholerae (CTB) are examples of such antigens. When the native LTB gene was expressed via the tobacco nuclear genome, LTB accumulated at levels less than 0.01% of the total soluble leaf protein. Production of effective levels of LTB in plants, required extensive codon modification. Amplification of an unmodified CTB coding sequence in chloroplasts, up to 10,000 copies per cell, resulted in the accumulation of up to 4.1% of total soluble tobacco leaf protein as oligomers (about 410 fold higher expression levels than that of the unmodified LTB gene). PCR and Southern blot analyses confirmed stable integration of the CTB gene into the chloroplast genome. Western blot analysis showed that chloroplast synthesized CTB assembled into oligomers and was antigenically identical to purified native CTB. Also, GM1-ganglioside binding assays confirmed that chloroplast synthesized CTB binds to the intestinal membrane receptor of cholera toxin, indicating correct folding and disulfide bond formation within the chloroplast. In contrast to stunted nuclear transgenic plants, chloroplast transgenic plants were morphologically indistinguishable from untransformed plants, when CTB was constitutively expressed. The introduced gene was stably inherited in the subsequent generation as confirmed by PCR and Southern blot analyses. Incrased production of an efficient transmucosal carrier molecule and delivery system, like CTB, in transgenic chloroplasts makes plant based oral vaccines and fusion proteins with CTB needing oral administration a much more practical approach.

This invention provides cyanobacteria as an alternative source of ahas and pds genes for plant transformations and for selectable markers. In particular, it provides for cyanobacteria, for example, Synechocystis, as a source of genes encoding herbicide insensitive proteins, and elements of genes for control of expression in plastids. Nucleic acid fragments, both the acetolactate synthase (ahas) large subunit and the ahas small subunit, were found to provide herbicide resistance. Also, the present invention provides novel Synechocystis mutant phytoene desaturase (PDS) gene conferring resistance to 4′-fluoro-6[(alpha,alpha,alpha,-trifluoro-m-tolyl)oxy]-picolinamide, a bleaching herbicide. The present invention provides improvements to method involving cyanobacteria for the screening of compounds, including a new high-through-put protocol that is a rapid and cost effective way to identify target site genes.

This invention provides a novel method to confer disease resistance to plants. Plant plastids are transformed using a plastid vector which contains heterologous DNA sequences coding for a cytotoxic antimicrobial peptide. Transgenic plants are capable of fighting off phytopathogenic bacterial infection.