Sorghum
Summary
An Australian patent, AU 743 706 B2, was
granted to Pioneer Hi-Bred Inc. in January 2002 and a United
States Patent, US 6 369 298 B1, was granted in April. The subject matter is the
transformation of sorghum via Agrobacterium. A related application was
filed in South Africa.
The granted Australian claims are more limited than the initially filed claims. The sorghum tissue to be transformed is now restricted to a certain group of tissues and the concentration of Agrobacterium cells in suspension is fixed. Another limiting factor of the granted invention is the number of copies of the sequence of interest inserted into the genome of a sorghum cell, tissue or plant, offering another avenue for designing around.
The method disclosed in the US patent utilizes an immature embryo as target for Agrobacterium. The gene cassette must contain a gene which confers resistance to a selection agent. Furthermore, during culture the medium must contain an antibiotic to eliminate the bacteria as well as contain the selection agent.
The broadest claim in the pending US application recites a sorghum plant transformed with Agrobacterium. The main restriction is that fewer than 5 copies of the introduced construct are present in the genome (multiple copies of integrated foreign DNA are generally undesirable).
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