Parthenocarpic watermelon plants
AssigneeNunhems B.V.
InventorsDaniel PUGLISI, Alberto SIRIZZOTTI, Courtney HU, Mona MAZAHERI
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention is directed to seedless fruit producing watermelon. The present invention also comprises methods for production of said plants and methods for producing seedless watermelon.
Claims20
A watermelon plant or plant part comprising at least one copy of a mutant allele of a gene named WAP7.1, wherein said mutant allele either
- a) comprises one or more mutations in a regulatory element, resulting in no expression or reduced expression of the allele compared to the wild type allele, or
- b) encodes a mutant protein comprising one or more amino acids replaced, inserted or deleted compared to the wild type protein,
- wherein said mutant allele of a) or b) confers facultative parthenocarpy when the mutant allele is in homozygous form, and wherein the wild type WAP7.1 allele encodes a protein of SEQ ID NO:
- 1 or a protein comprising at least 94% sequence identity to SEQ ID NO:
- 1.
A method for screening watermelon plants, seeds, plant parts or DNA therefrom for the presence of a mutant allele of a gene named WAP7.1, or for selecting a watermelon plant, seed or plant part comprising a mutant allele of a gene named WAP7.1, comprising the steps:
- a) analyzing whether the genomic DNA comprises a wild type WAP7.1 allele which encodes a protein of SEQ ID NO:
- 1, or a protein comprising at least 94% sequence identity to SEQ ID NO:
- 1, and/or a mutant WAP7.1 allele which encodes a mutant protein comprising one or more amino acids replaced, inserted or deleted compared to the wild type WAP7.1 protein, and optionally
- b) selecting a plant, seed or plant part comprising two copies of the wild type allele, two copies of mutant allele or one copy of the wild type allele and one copy of the mutant allele.
A method for screening and/or selecting plants, seeds or plant material or plant parts, or DNA or RNA or protein derived therefrom, for the presence of a mutant wap7.1 allele comprising one or more of the following steps:
- a) determining if the gene expression of the endogenous WAP7.1 gene is reduced or abolished;
- b) determining if the amount of wild type WAP7.1 protein is reduced or abolished;
- c) determining if a mutant mRNA, cDNA or genomic DNA encoding a mutant WAP7.1 protein is present;
- and/or
- d) determining if a mutant WAP7.1 protein is present;
- wherein the endogenous WAP7.1 gene is the gene which encodes a wild type WAP7.1 protein of SEQ ID NO:
- 1.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.