Session 5
Transgenomics and Traitmill
There were two speakers in this session; Dr Andrzej Killian from CAMBIA and Dr Stephanie von Gavel from CropDesign.
Dr Andrzej Killian described work at CAMBIA aiming to produce plants with improved agronomic traits by altering gene regulation networks. The approach is to generate enhancer trap lines that direct the expression of a transactivator, which in turn directs the expression of a reporter gene. A second set of lines containing the target site for the transactivator is made. Crosses between lines from the two sets should lead to altered expression of genes close to the target site for the transactivator. These lines are screened for novel phenotypes.
The approach is being carried out in rice, but as it does not depend on a knowledge of genome sequence could be used in any transformable species.
Questions
Dr Georges Freyssinet (Bayer): Why work on Arabidopsis and rice when you said this is a system that doesn’t require sequence information?
A. These species have the best high throughput transformation systems
Dr Jeff Ellis (CSIRO). It looks like this is effectively a one gene at a time approach.
A. This system can be used to validate identified target genes and select for improved characteristics.
Dr Stephanie von Gavel talked about the high throughput approach to identifying agronomically important genes being taken by CropDesign. The TraitMill platform takes candidate genes and couples them to selected promoters for expression in rice. An automated greenhouse is used to grow the plants. The growth parameters of each line are automatically measured, stored and analysed. Genes identified as potentially useful form the basis for future improved crops.
Questions
Dr Liz Dennis (CSIRO): Does the glasshouse give you realistic conditions?
A. We don’t know yet.
Dr Andrzej Killian (CAMBIA): Do you have different promoters for a given gene?
A. We tend to mix and match the promoters using the Gateway system to clone the genes.
Q. The end point is a variety – how can this be patent protected?
A. Genes are patented based on the function identified by traitmill
Q. Spaced plants in a glasshouse are different to a crop
A. This isn’t an end product anything found will have to be field tested