Current Technology and Research Opportunities

Technology Opportunity - Plant-based insect resistance

Opportunity: Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology are exploring the feasibility of developing technologies that will provide a novel, target-specific and environmentally- friendly approach for the protection of agricultural crops from insect pests.

Summary: Plant-feeding insects need cholesterol, in their cell membranes and as a precursor of the moulting hormone that controls life cycle developments, but they cannot synthesize these sterols themselves. Instead they use phytosterols (plant sterols) from host plants, and convert them to cholesterol; insect growth is known to be impaired when this pathway is disrupted.

The insect-resistance strategy of producing plants with modified sterols, which will allow normal plant growth and development, but will not support insect growth has been investigated and alternative sterol biosynthesis enzymes introduced into plants.

Proof-of-concept is being achieved by:

  • Knockout of key plant enzymes in Arabidopsis (mutants with disrupted sterol biosynthesis)
  • Screening and characterization of novel sterol synthase genes (from the plant kingdom)
  • Transferring of novel sterol synthase genes into Arabidopsis
  • Assessments of plant productivity and insect resistance

The ultimate goal would be to transform this technology to agricultural crops; e.g., wheat, barley, and canola, to test with their host-specific insect pests, thereby reducing pesticide usage, increasing productivity, and improving food/feed quality.

Intellectual Property: The IP currently exists as confidential information concerning the candidate genes and can be patented in due course.

Commercialisation: The Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology is seeking partners to assist with the plant productivity and insect resistance studies required to validate the strategy. Partner(s) will receive rights to commercialise the candidate genes.

For further information on this opportunity please contact:

Download Click here to downloand in PDF format for easy printing.

 

Technology Opportunity - CMS Restorer genes

Opportunity: Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology have developed a predictive tool for the identification of plant fertility restorer (Rf) genes.

The method relies on the combination of (i) phylogenetic analysis of a family of genes known to be associated with plant fertility, (ii) an assessment of the predicted sequences for the presence of novel positive selection indicators recently identified by our researchers.

The opportunity exists to use this method for the prediction of Rf genes in fully-sequenced crops bred with cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS).

Summary: The phenomena of CMS and fertility restoration have been exploited by plant breeders to synthesize hybrid lines of a number of crop species. The presence of a nuclear Rf gene is essential to confer self-pollination on the hybrid plants, but functional Rf genes must be excluded from the female parental line to avoid contamination of the hybrid seed.

Rf genes are currently identified by map-based positional cloning approaches that require several years work. For example, it took six years to limit the Rf region of rice to a 300 kb sequence, and another two years to validate the Rf gene by plant gene manipulation. If the genome information for a target plant species is available, the method developed by our researchers only requires a short in silico analysis to predict the candidate Rf genes.

As proof-of-concept our researchers trialled the method with rice, a species where 2 Rf genes have been identified and validated:

30,000 genes -> 6 preferred candidates (320kb region).
 The 2 known rice Rf genes were found to be included in the 6 preferred candidates.

This computer based analysis and prediction would have saved many years of traditional analysis and the researchers are keen to apply this method to crops of commercial importance.

Intellectual Property: The IP exists as software and "know-how" that can be accessed by potential partners.

Commercialisation: The Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology is seeking partners who require access to the method for the prediction of Rf genes. Ideally this will be as a collaborative project, although commercial partners can access the method under a fee-for-service arrangement.

For further information on this opportunity please contact:

Download Click here to downloand in PDF format for easy printing.