Viral-based vectors for expressing heterologous proteins in soybean - 1371
- *Abstract
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Overview
Soybean is the top oilseed crop in the world and provides an extremely valuable, multi-billion dollar, source of high quality protein. It is highly desirable to increase the level of soybean resistance to environmental stress, targeted pests, and diseases in commercial varieties.
Plant virus-based vectors for expressing heterologous proteins in plants present promising biotechnological tools to supplement conventional breeding and transgenic technology. Considering the speed with which a virus infection becomes established throughout the plant and the high yield of viral-encoded proteins that accumulate in plants, the use of viral vectors provides an attractive and cost effective means for the overproduction of valuable proteins in plants and for rapid evaluation of new traits.
UK researchers are developing a bean pod mottle virus (BPMV) expression vector which allows rapid evaluation of candidate proteins with anti-fungal or insecticidal activities as well as other valuable proteins that may enhance the commercial value of soybean.
Invention
UK researchers are developing bean pod mottle virus (BPMV) vectors useful for expression of heterologous proteins in plants such as soybean. These BPMV vectors advantageously allow efficient systemic expression of foreign polypeptides and nucleic acids in soybean.
Testing has shown that the use of the BPMV vector results in successful expression of several proteins with different biological activities, including the reporter proteins GFP and DsRed, phosphinothricin acetyltransferase (encoded by the herbicide resistance bar gene), and the RNA silencing suppressors encoded by Tomato bushy stunt virus, Turnip crinkle virus, Tobacco etch virus, and Soybean mosaic virus. The possible use of BPMV as a VIGS vector to study gene function in soybean was also demonstrated with the phytoene desaturase gene. These results indicate that the BPMV-based vectors are suitable for expression of foreign proteins in soybean and for functional genomics applications.
Additionally, the BPMV vectors are useful for virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS), which is an exceptional reverse genetics tool that can be employed to generate mutant phenotypes for conveying function to unknown genes.
Applications
- expressing heterologous proteins in plants such as soybean
- suitable for use as a VIGS vector to study gene function in soybean
Advantages
- a cost-effective solution for generating a high yield of specific proteinexpression
- the virus (including mild strains) multiplies to high levels in soybean (20-50 mg virus from 100 g leaf tissue)
- the virus is stable and easily purified
Development Status: use of the BPMV vector has resulted in successful expression of several proteins with different biological activities
IP Status: U.S. Patent No. 7,618,815
- Country/Region
- USA
