www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

Andrea Steimer of Zurich, Switzerland, Ortrun Mittelsten Scheid of Basel,
Switzerland, and Jerzy Paszkowski of Nenzlingen, Switzerland, have developed
transcriptionally silenced plant genes, March 2006.

According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The invention relates to
gene silencing as observed after integration of transgenes into plant
genomes.

Comparison of transcriptional gene expression between an Arabidopsis line
carrying a silent transgene present in multiple copies and its mutant
derivative momi impaired in silencing of the transgene revealed two
complementary deoxyribonucleic acid clones which are expressed in the mutant
plants, but not in the parental and not in wild type plants. Both clones are
derived from the same family of transcripts referred to as transcriptionally
silent information (TSI)."

An abstract of the invention, released by the Patent Office, said: "Genomic
templates encoding TSI are repetitive elements with mainly pericentromeric
location and conserved organization among various ecotypes. Transcriptional
silencing of the genomic TSI templates is specifically released in the
mutant. Transcription of TSI can be used as a marker to identify a defective
silencing pathway in a plant."

The inventors were issued U.S. Patent No. 7,005,263 on Feb. 28.

The patent has been assigned to Syngenta Participations AG, Basel.

www.checkbiotech.org

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