Transgenic plants with enhanced growth characteristics

摘要

The invention relates to transgenic plants exhibiting dramatically enhanced growth rates, greater seed and fruit/pod yields, earlier and more productive flowering, more efficient nitrogen utilization, increased tolerance to high salt conditions, and increased biomass yields. In one embodiment, transgenic plants engineered to over-express both glutamine phenylpyruvate transaminase (GPT) and glutamine synthetase (GS) are provided. The GPT+GS double-transgenic plants of the invention consistently exhibit enhanced growth characteristics, with T0 generation lines showing an increase in biomass over wild type counterparts of between 50% and 300%. Generations that result from sexual crosses and/or selfing typically perform even better, with some of the double-transgenic plants achieving an astounding four-fold biomass increase over wild type plants.

主权项

1. A method for producing a transgenic plant having increased biomass yield relative to an analogous wild type or untransformed plant, comprising:
(a) introducing a glutamine phenylpyruvate transaminase (GPT) transgene into a plurality of plants, wherein the GPT transgene encodes a GPT polypeptide having (1) an amino acid sequence that has at least 85% sequence identity to SEQ ID NO: 2 and (2) GPT catalytic activity; (b) introducing a glutamine synthetase (GS) transgene into the plurality of plants or progeny of the plurality of plants, wherein said GS transgene encodes a GS polypeptide having (1) an amino acid sequence that has at least 85% sequence identity to SEQ ID NO: 7 and (2) GS catalytic activity; (c) expressing the GPT transgene and the GS transgene in the plurality of plants or the progeny thereof; and, (d) selecting from said plurality of plants or the progeny thereof a transgenic plant having an increased biomass yield relative to an analogous wild type or untransformed plant of the same species.