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:
Nov. 19, 2002
Filed:
Aug. 12, 1999
William P. Donovan, Manchester, MO (US);
James A. Baum, Webster Groves, MO (US);
Certis USA, L.L.C., Columbia, MD (US);
Abstract
The present invention provides constructed ( .) strains that are toxic to mosquito larvae. The mosquito-toxic . strains have improved characteristics, such as increased production of mosquito-toxic proteins, reduced number of spores or increased variety of mosquito-toxic proteins, compared with the well-known, mosquito-toxic strain subspecies ( ). The present invention involves insertion of an antibiotic-resistance gene into the mosquito-toxin plasmid having a size of approximately 75 mDa such that the plasmid is “tagged” with antibiotic resistance. The advantage of the tagged mosquito-toxin plasmid is that it permits detection of the rare event in which the mosquito-toxin plasmid is transferred from the strain (the donor strain) into a non- strain (the recipient strain) that normally does not harbor the mosquito-toxin plasmid. Non- recipient cells may have improved characteristics such as reduced spore numbers or increased variety of mosquito-toxic proteins. The present invention also provides for a mechanism of inactivating the antibiotic tag so that . strains harboring the mosquito-toxin plasmid do not disseminate antibiotic resistance when released into the environment.