The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 06, 2001
Filed:
Jan. 13, 1998
Abstract
The present invention discloses genetically engineered plants which display altered structure or morphology. The transgenic plants express a cell wall modulation transgene or gene construct that results in the altered structure or morphology. The altered structure or Morphology can be associated with, for example, altered biomass, growth, yield, greater or less resistance to biodegradation, more or less digestible to ruminants, altered cellulose content, larger leaves/normal hypocotyls or smaller leaves/longer hypocotyls, etc. compared to a non-transgenic plant of the same species. The cell wall modulation transgene can be any cellulose binding domain, a cellulose binding protein, or a cell wall modifying protein or enzyme such as endoxyloglucan transferase, xyloglucan endo-transglycosylase, an expansin, cellulose synthase, or a novel isolated endo-1,4-&bgr;-glucanase of,The invention also discloses transgenic plants containing a gene construct comprising a promoter operably linked to the cell wall modulation protein or polypeptide gene and may further comprise a sequence encoding a secretion signal peptide. In particular, the invention discloses transgenic plants containing a gene construct comprising the cel,promoter, operably linked to the cel1 signal peptide and any cellulose binding domain. Methods for modulating plant growth by transgenic expression of a cell wall modulating protein or polypeptide are also disclosed. The present invention also discloses a novel, isolated,endo-1,4-&bgr;-glucanase gene (cel1), its promoter (cel1 promoter) and polypeptide (Cel1) and recombinant nucleic acid vectors containing the cel,gene with or without a secretion signal peptide sequence and/or the cel1 promoter.