Reducing levels of nicotinic alkaloids in plants

1. A method for producing a tobacco plant cell having suppression of a gene product encoded by SEQ ID NO: 3, comprising genetically engineering a population of plant cells to suppress production of the gene product encoded by SEQ ID NO: 3, comprising introducing one or more mutations into the region of SEQ ID NO: 3

that encodes a polypeptide having the amino acid sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO: 4, wherein the plant cells exhibit reduced expression of the gene product as compared to a non-transformed control cell.

2. A plant cell produced by the method of claim 1 , wherein the plant cell comprises in its genome the one or more mutations and exhibits reduced expression of the gene product encoded by SEQ ID NO: 3 as compared to a non-transformed control cell.

3. A plant having suppression of the gene product encoded by SEQ ID NO: 3 and a reduced nicotine level, as compared to a control plant, produced from the plant cell of claim 2 .

4. A product comprising the plant of claim 3 , and having a reduced level of nicotine as compared to a product produced from a control plant, wherein the product is selected from the group consisting of a tobacco product, food product, food ingredient, feed product, feed ingredient, nutritional supplement, and biofuel.

5. The tobacco product of claim 4 , wherein the product is selected from the group consisting of smoking cessation products, cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, cigars, cigar tobacco, snus, pipe tobacco, and chewing tobacco.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the genetic engineering comprises introducing into the population of cells a reagent comprising a recombinagenic oligonucleobase to introduce said mutations.

7. Seeds from the plant of claim 3 or progeny plant thereof, wherein the seeds comprise in their genomes the one or more mutations.