Generation of plants with altered protein, fiber, or oil content
View Patent ↗The present invention is directed to plants that display an improved oil quantity phenotype or an improved meal quality phenotype due to altered expression of an IMQ nucleic acid. The invention is further directed to methods of generating plants with an improved oil quantity phenotype or improved meal quality phenotype.
1. A method of producing an improved meal quality phenotype in a plant, said method comprising:
a) introducing into progenitor cells of the plant a plant transformation vector comprising a nucleotide sequence that encodes or is complementary to a sequence that encodes an IMQ polypeptide comprising an amino acid sequence at least 95% identical to the amino acid sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO: 80;
b) growing the transformed progenitor cells to produce a transgenic plant, wherein the nucleotide sequence is expressed, and the transgenic plant exhibits an improved meal quality phenotype relative to control plants, wherein oil content is increased relative to control plants; and
c) measuring the improved meal quality phenotype in the transgenic plant, relative to control plants,
thereby producing the improved meal quality phenotype in the plant.
2. A method of generating a plant having an improved meal quality phenotype comprising identifying a plant that has an allele in its ortholog of the A. thaliana IMQ gene, where the wild-type A. thaliana IMQ gene has the nucleic acid sequence set forth as SEQ ID NO: 79, which allele results in improved meal quality phenotype compared to a control plant lacking the allele; and
Generating progeny of said identified plant, wherein the generated progeny inherit the allele and have improved meal quality phenotype and increased oil content; and
Measuring the improved meal quality phenotype in the progeny comprising the allele, relative to the control plant lacking the allele,
Thereby generating a plant having an improved meal quality phenotype.
3. The method of claim 2 that employs candidate gene/QTL methodology to identify the plant.
4. The method of claim 2 that employs TILLING methodology to identify the plant.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the IMQ polypeptide comprises an amino acid sequence at least 98% identical to the amino acid sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO: 80.
6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the IMQ polypeptide comprises an amino acid sequence at least 99% identical to the amino acid sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO: 80.
7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the IMQ polypeptide comprises the amino acid sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO: 80.
8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the IMQ polypeptide consists of the amino acid sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO: 80.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plant transformation vector comprises a nucleotide sequence at least 95% identical to the nucleic acid sequence set forth as SEQ ID NO: 79.
10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the plant transformation vector comprises a nucleotide sequence at least 98% identical to the nucleic acid sequence set forth as SEQ ID NO: 79.
11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the plant transformation vector comprises a nucleotide sequence at least 99% identical to the nucleic acid sequence set forth as SEQ ID NO: 79.
12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the plant transformation vector comprises the nucleic acid sequence set forth as SEQ ID NO: 79.
13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the nucleotide sequence is operably linked to a constitutive, inducible, or regulatable promoter sequence.