NOVEL PLANTS AND PROCESSES FOR OBTAINING THEM

• Main Authors: BIRD, COLIN ROGER, SINGLETARY, GEORGE, FENTEM, PHILIP ANTHONY, KEELING, PETER, LEWIS
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 19.05.2004
• Edition: 7
• Subjects: AGRICULTURE; ANIMAL HUSBANDRY; BEER; BIOCHEMISTRY; CHEMISTRY; COMPOSITIONS THEREOF; CULTURE MEDIA; ENZYMOLOGY; FISHING; FORESTRY; HUMAN NECESSITIES; HUNTING; METALLURGY; MICROBIOLOGY; MICROORGANISMS OR ENZYMES; MUTATION OR GENETIC ENGINEERING; NEW PLANTS OR PROCESSES FOR OBTAINING THEM; PLANT REPRODUCTION BY TISSUE CULTURE TECHNIQUES; PROPAGATING, PRESERVING OR MAINTAINING MICROORGANISMS; SPIRITS; TRAPPING; VINEGAR; WINE

Plants, particularly cereal plants, which have improved ability to synthesise starch at elevated or lowered temperatures and/or to synthesise starch with an altered fine structure are produced by inserting into the genome of the plant (i) a gene(s) encoding a form of an enzyme of the starch or glycogen biosynthetic pathway, particularly soluble starch synthase and/or branching enzyme and/or glycogen synthase, which display an activity which continues to increase over a temperature range over which the activity would normally be expected to decrease, and/or (ii) a gene(s) encoding sense and anti-sense constructs of enzymes of the starch biosynthetic pathway, particularly soluble starch synthase and/or branching enzyme and/or glycogen synthase, which alters the natural ratios of expression of the said enzymes or inserts enzymes with special structural characteristics which alter the natural branching pattern in starch.