Abstract: Described are an isolated DNA fragment incorporating an osmotin gene promoter sequence, recombinant DNA incorporating a foreign structural gene under control of an osmotin gene promoter sequence, as well as methods and transformants involving the isolated DNA fragment and recombinant DNA. Also described are methods for the inhibition of fungal, insect, nematode, and viral pathogens in a plant using such recombinant DNA.

Abstract: The invention discloses methods of controlling one or more genes in plants. The genes may be exogenous genes and produce a desired phenotypic trait in the plants produced. The genes are operatively linked to a heterologous upstream activating sequence (UAS) recognition site, which is activatable by a transactivating protein, such as GAL4. The genes linked to the UAS sequence, and nucleic acid encoding for the transactivating protein may originally be in separate transgenic plants, one of which fertilises the other to produce reproductive material, such as seed, which may be grown into plants expressing the desired phenotype. The desired phenotype may be herbicide resistance or the production of a polyhydroxyalkanoate, such as polyhydroxybutyrate.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a chimeric gene for conferring to plants an increased tolerance to a herbicide. This chimeric gene comprises, in the direction of transcription, a promoter region, a transit peptide region, a sequence encoding glyphosate tolerance and a polyadenylation signal region, wherein the promoter region consists of at least one promoter of a plant histone gene enabling the expression of the herbicide tolerance protein in the regions of glyphosate accumulation. The present invention further provides vectors containing the present chimeric genes, of glyphosate-tolerant plants.

Abstract: Two nucleotide sequences encoding two different polypeptides found in yeast trehalose synthase have been isolated and cloned. A third polypeptide has been isolated from the enzyme and characterized, and a method is provided to isolate and clone the nucleotide sequence encoding this polypeptide. The coding sequences can be inserted into suitable vectors and used to transform host cells. The transformed cells will produce increased amounts of trehalose compared to the untransformed wild types and have increased tolerance to a variety of stresses, in particular to decreased availability of water. The invention may be used to improve the stress tolerance of organisms, to increase the storage life of foodstuffs and to produce trehalose economically on an industrial scale in an organism (e.g, baker's yeast) that is a traditional and safe foodstuff.

Abstract: This invention relates to plant cells, plants, and seeds expressing a polypeptide having larvicidal activity. In particular, the invention relates to plant cells, plants, and seeds expressing the N-terminal region of a polypeptide toxic against the larvae of Lepidoptera of the Noctuidae family, and preferably against S.littoralis.

Abstract: A transgenic plant into which a chimeric gene comprising a wound inducible promoter and a gene for an enzyme involved in cytokinin biosynthesis has been introduced shows enhanced resistance to insect infestation.

Abstract: Sugar beet plants which are resistant to imidazolinone herbicides are described. The sugar beet plants are derived from susceptible cells by selection for mutant imidazolinone resistant cells with the herbicide. The resistant plants derived from the cells can be grown in fields where imidazolinones have been used for weed control.

Abstract: The invention discloses a transgenic method for producing fruit with diminished or very little seeds or fruits with reduced seed number. It involves the temporal expression of a cytotoxic gene or combination of genes targeted toward arresting seed development at a time sufficiently after pollination that fruit development and maturation is normal while early enough in seed development that seed maturation per se is minimized. The invention also includes transgenic constructs, vectors, and methods for production of the fruit with diminished or very little seed bearing plants.

Abstract: The initial steps in photosynthesis are the conversion of light energy into chemical energy. This conversion is performed by the multisubunit protein-pigment complexes of the thylakoid membranes. Oxygen-evolving photosystems contain photosystem I (PSI) and photosystem II (PSII), which act in tandem. In PSII, the majority of light-adsorbing chlorophylls are attached to LHCII, the light harvesting complex associated with this photosystem. LHCII is the most abundant member of the family of chlorophyll a/b binding (CAB) proteins. A gene encoding a type I chlorophyll a/b binding protein of LHCII (ICABPSII) has been cloned from Brassica napus L. An anti-sense RNA of this gene has been used to reduce the amount of chlorophyll a/b binding protein and thus reduce the amount of chlorophyll in the resulting transgenic plants. By using "site" specific promoters the reduction of chlorophyll can be targeted to specific organelles in the transgenic plant and thus can be used to reduce the green color at these sites.

Abstract: Fertile corn plants are produced by culturing anthers or pollen in the presence colchicine which is added to an otherwise ordinary anther culture medium after a pre-culture phase in the absence of the colchicine. The colchicine induces doubling of the chromosome numbers in regenerated plants which would otherwise be infertile haploids. Haploid doubling provides a rapid route to homozygous parental plant lines.

Abstract: A method for commercial production of avidin entails heterologous expression of the protein in plants, in native conformation, at an expression level such that avidin represents at least 0.1% of total extracted protein. A genetic map of the integration locus allows for the identification of the avidin-expressing plant. Genetic loci on a plant chromosome are revealed that support high levels of avidin expression and that can be used as a site of integration for high level expression of other genes of interest.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method for identifying or selecting from a population of eukaryotic cells cultivated on or in a medium containing at least one compound, cells which have a metabolic advantage as a result of having being transformed, wherein:i) the cells are transformed with a nucleotide sequence or a co-introduced nucleotide sequence one of which comprises a region which: (a) encodes a protein which is involved in the metabolism of the compound, and/or (b) regulates the activity of the protein; andii) the compound is mannose or xylose or a derivative or a precursor of these, or a substrate of the protein, or is capable of being metabolized by the transformed cells into such a substrate, with the proviso that the compound is not mannose when the protein is mannose 6 phosphate isomerase.

Abstract: A method for isolating a cereal plant with foreign DNA by bombarding meristem primordia tissue with particles coated with the foreign DNA in a culture media is described. The foreign DNA in the transformed plants can provide proteins which impart disease and/or insect resistance or other desirable properties.

Abstract: A methodology for ascertaining gene function entails selection of mutations in androgenetic haploids which are produced by fertilizing a maize plant carrying the indeterminate gametophyte gene (ig) with pollen obtained from a mutagenized plant. Genes that control quantitative characters can be identified, for example, by fertilizing a first inbred carrying the ig gene with pollen from a second inbred that has been mutagenized. Changes in the phenotype of the hybrid progeny then are identified and characterized. A method for direct selection of androgenetic haploids is provided.

Abstract: The present invention is directed to isolated non-coding nucleotide sequences useful as promoters for heterologous gene expression in plants. The present invention is also directed to vectors and plant cells comprising the isolated nucleotide sequences.AHAS promoters from maize are used to express introduced genes at high levels and in various plant tissues. Promoters from the als1 and als2 genes of maize are cloned and sequenced, and the promoter regions from these genes are then introduced into a plasmid 5' to the reporter gene beta-glucuronidase (GUS). Both promoter fragments are from the XI12 maize line. The als1 promoter fragment is approximately 1400 base pairs long, whereas the als2 promoter fragment contains 829 base pairs.

Abstract: The present invention is directed to a method for controlling plant cell growth comprising modulating the level and or catalytic activity of a cell cycle control protein in said plant cell for a time and under conditions sufficient to control cell division. Preferably, the cell cycle control protein is p3.sup.4cdc2 or like molecule and the plant is a monocotyledonous plant or dicotyledonous plant.

Abstract: Rice plants are disclosed with two separate, but synergistic mechanisms for resistance to herbicides that normally inhibit a plant's acetohydroxyacid synthase (AHAS) enzyme. The herbicide resistance of plants with both resistance mechanisms is substantially greater than one would expect from a simple combination of the two types of resistance. The first of the two resistance mechanisms is a metabolic pathway that is not fully understood, but that does not itself involve a mutant AHAS enzyme. The second resistance mechanism is a mutant AHAS enzyme, an enzyme that shows direct resistance to levels of herbicide that normally inhibit the enzyme, in both in vivo and in vitro assays. Besides controlling red rice, many AHAS-inhibiting herbicides also effectively control other weeds that are common in rice fields. Several of these herbicides have residual activity, so that one treatment in the early spring controls both existing weeds as well as weeds that sprout later.

Abstract: A method for making a genetically modified plant comprising regenerating a whole plant from a plant cell that has been transfected with DNA sequences comprising a first gene whose expression results in an altered plant phenotype linked to a transiently active promoter, the gene and promoter being separated by a blocking sequence flanked on either side by specific excision sequences, a second gene that encodes a recombinase specific for the specific excision sequences linked to a repressible promoter, and a third gene that encodes the repressor specific for the repressible promoter.

Abstract: The present invention relates to an expression vector for the large scale production of a human or animal protein, which comprises a DNA construct consisting of operatively linked DNA coding for a plant promoter, a transcription terminator and the human or animal protein to be expressed. Such human or animal proteins may be selected from the group consisting of human protein C (HPC), factor VIII, growth hormone, erythropoietin, interleukin 1 to 7, colony stimulating factors, relaxins, polypeptide hormones, cytokines, growth factors and coagulation factors. The present invention also relates to the plant bioreactor and to the method for the large scale production of human or animal proteins.

Abstract: The present invention relates to the use of DNA sequence motifs to regulate gene expression in a tissue- or developmental-specific manner in transgenic plants. The invention generally relates to the engineering and use of G-box related sequence motifs, specifically Iwt and PA motifs, which function as cis-elements of promoters, to regulate the expression of heterologous genes in transgenic plants. PA enhances high level expression in roots, low level expression in leaves and little or no expression in seeds. By contrast, Iwt confers preferential expression in seeds, but in a developmentally-regulated manner.