Making Plant Genetic Engineering More Efficient with a Nitrogen Enzyme

This patent describes a method to make genetic engineering and gene editing in plants more successful by increasing the activity of a specific gene called NiR, which helps with how plants use nitrogen.

What it covers

The invention improves the process of changing plant genes by overexpressing, or making a lot of, the NiR gene within plant cells. This overexpression can be achieved by introducing a special piece of DNA called an expression construct containing the NiR gene into the plant cell (claim 1). This method is used to achieve two main goals: first, to improve the plant's ability to regenerate into a whole plant from a single modified cell (claim 1); and second, to make the actual gene editing or genetic transformation process more efficient (claims 2 and 3). For example, a scientist could introduce the NiR gene alongside a gene editing system like CRISPR (claim 6) into a callus cell (claim 8) of a crop like corn (claim 9) to more easily create a new plant with desired traits.

What it doesn't cover

• —Does not cover plant genetic transformation or gene editing methods that do not involve overexpressing the NiR gene.
• —Does not cover genetic modification techniques applied to non-plant organisms, such as animal or fungal cells.
• —Does not cover methods that improve plant traits without involving the regeneration of an intact plant from a modified cell.
• —Does not cover methods where the NiR gene is not introduced into the plant cell via an expression construct.
• —Does not cover gene editing systems that are not introduced into the plant cell via an expression construct.

The clever bit

The clever bit is identifying that overexpressing the NiR gene, which plays a role in nitrogen metabolism, can directly boost the success rate of regenerating a whole plant from a modified cell and the overall efficiency of gene editing. This links a fundamental plant metabolic pathway to a key bottleneck in genetic engineering.

Why it matters

Improving the efficiency of genetic transformation and gene editing in plants is critical for developing new crop varieties faster and more affordably. Many genetically modified (GM) crops, like herbicide-resistant soybeans or insect-resistant corn, rely on these techniques. By making the process more efficient, this invention could help accelerate the creation of plants with improved yields, better nutritional value, or increased resistance to diseases and pests, which are important for global food security.

Real-world examples

• 1.Genetically modified corn
• 2.Herbicide-resistant soybeans
• 3.Disease-resistant wheat
• 4.Biofortified rice
• 5.CRISPR-edited tomatoes