The Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research

Leibniz-institut Fuer Pflanzengenetik Und Kulturpflanzenforschung

Goetz Hensel

Patrick Schweizer

Alexandra Gay

Jochen Kumlehn

The present invention relates to the creation of broad-spectrum resistance in transgenic plants by inserting inhibitory nucleic acid sequences inhibiting the expression of fungal genes. The nucleic acid sequences of genes which are crucial to development, growth and profilation of fungi, i.e. sequences of genes with an essential function in fungi, are often conserved and/or have a high sequence identity. Regions having a particularly high sequence identity between various fungi are used in order to produce inhibitory gene constructs, e.g. on basis of antisense, siRNA, shRNA, ribozyme technology and other technologies imparting the inhibition of the expression and activation of genes. Since said methods base on the sequence-specific hybridization of the inhibitory RNA molecules with respective target sequences in certain fungal genes, the expression of all corresponding genes from various fungi is thus inhibited as well. Due to the high sequence identity of such conserved gene sections, transgenic plants are thus produced, which have broad-spectrum resistance to various fungi.

Growing community of inventors

Koethen, Germany

Goetz Hensel