Method to Obtain Male Sterile Plants Patented by Aventis
Aventis CropScience N.V. (headquartered in Lyon, France) has been awarded a patent (#US6344602) for inventing a method to obtain male sterile plants in otherwise sexually cross-pollinated crop plants such as canola, corn or rice. Increases in crop production may result from planting hybrid seeds, but it is an extremely laborious process and therefore costly to obtain hybrid seeds because of the need to remove stamens (male reproductive organs) manually. Male-sterile plants, whether produced naturally or artificially, reduce that cost. Aventis has used a gene named barnase, derived from the bacterium Bacillus amyloliguefaciens, to construct male-sterile lines by expressing a chimeric barnase gene specifically in male reproductive tissues. The barnase gene encodes an extracellular ribonuclease. The company also developed a male fertility restorer line using the barstar gene, also derived from B. amyloligue- faciens. The protein encoded by barstar inhibits the activity of barnase. Aventis has developed male-sterile and male fertility restorer lines using this system in oil seed rape, corn and rice. To obtain more details, search for the patent number 6344602 at the US Patent and Trade Office .
