SUMO Crops

About

Brief Description: Abiotic stress such as drought, cold and heat stress greatly affects plant growth, development and grain yield. In cereals, these abiotic stress conditions reduce grain yield. The increasing global population and climate changes have also created a major challenge for breeders to develop cereal crops that produce more grain under sustainable agricultural systems. To achieve this, researchers at Stellenbosch University have developed a mechanism for improving abiotic stress tolerance in monocotyledonous food crops (i.e., wheat, barley, oats, maize, sorghum and sugarcane). Transformation of cereal crops with genes that targets Small Ubiquitin-like Modifier (SUMO) results in modification of proteins with the consequence of increasing drought, heat and/or old tolerance in transformants. SUMO-proteases play a vital role in regulating pathway flux and are therefore ideal targets for manipulating stress-responsive SUMOylation. Transformation of monocotyledonous crops using genes such as OTS1, OTS2 and ICE1 under control of the Rab17 inducible promotor, offers novel opportunities to capitalize SUMOylation mechanism. Target Market: Commercial seeds companies Value Proposition/Benefits: High value of crop with resilience to climate change and increased protein content. Unique Characteristics: Cereals with abiotic stress tolerance and increased protein content. Technical Description: Transformation of monocotyledonous using OTS1, OTS2 and ICE1 under control of the Rab17 inducible promotor, offers novel opportunities to capitalize on the SUMOylation mechanism. This offers new avenues to increasing food security through improved drought or stress tolerance. Innovation Status: A South African provisional patent was approved for this innovation.