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AssigneeYissum Research Development Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
InventorsOded Shoseyov, Ziv Shani, Etai Shpigel
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The present invention discloses genetically engineered plants which display altered structure or morphology. The transgenic plants express a cell wall modulation transgene or gene construct that results in the altered structure or morphology. The altered structure or Morphology can be associated with, for example, altered biomass, growth, yield, greater or less resistance to biodegradation, more or less digestible to ruminants, altered cellulose content, larger leaves/normal hypocotyls or smaller leaves/longer hypocotyls, etc. compared to a non-transgenic plant of the same species. The cell wall modulation transgene can be any cellulose binding domain, a cellulose binding protein, or a cell wall modifying protein or enzyme such as endoxyloglucan transferase, xyloglucan endo-transglycosylase, an expansin, cellulose synthase, or a novel isolated endo-1,4-β-glucanase of Arabidopsis thaliana. The invention also discloses transgenic plants containing a gene construct comprising a promoter operably linked to the cell wall modulation protein or polypeptide gene and may further comprise a sequence encoding a secretion signal peptide. In particular, the invention discloses transgenic plants containing a gene construct comprising the cel1 promoter, operably linked to the cel1 signal peptide and any cellulose binding domain. Methods for modulating plant growth by transgenic expression of a cell wall modulating protein or polypeptide are also disclosed. The present invention also discloses a novel, isolated Arabidopsis thaliana endo-1,4-β-glucanase gene (cel1), its promoter (cel1 promoter) and polypeptide (Cel1) and recombinant nucleic acid vectors containing the cel1 gene with or without a secretion signal peptide sequence and/or the cel1 promoter.
A transgenic plant transformed with a nucleic acid construct comprising a nucleic acid encoding a cell wall modulation protein or polypeptide operably linked to a nucleic acid sequence encoding a secretion signal peptide so that the cell wall modulation protein or polypeptide is expressed in the transgenic plant, said transgenic plant exhibiting altered morphology compared to a progenitor plant which does not contain the construct when the transgenic plant and progenitor plant are cultivated under the same conditions, wherein the altered morphology is higher biomass, faster growth rate, higher yield, higher cellulose content, more amenable for digestion by ruminants or increased survival rate.
A transgenic plant having a nucleic acid construct comprising a nucleic acid encoding a cell wall modulation protein or polypeptide operably linked to a nucleic acid sequence encoding a cel1 secretion signal peptide obtainable from Arabidopsis thaliana, so that the cell wall modulation protein or polypeptide is expressed in the transgenic plant, said transgenic plant exhibiting altered morphology compared to a progenitor plant which does not contain the construct when the transgenic plant and progenitor plant are cultivated under the same conditions.
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