MSU Technologies

000085: Divinyl Ether Synthase Gene and Protein and Uses Thereof

Description:

Pesticides are useful and necessary to protect crops from insects and weeds that would otherwise cause harm or destruction. However, pesticides are often burdensome to the environment and sometimes harmful to humans and wildlife. For this reason, alternative technologies are sought that will lessen and ideally eliminate the need to use pesticides for plant protection. The use of recombinant products and transgenic plant technologies are believed to be a promising approach to achieving this goal. An ideal scenario is to engineer plants with built in defensive mechanisms that would protect them from pests, or to produce effective protective agents exogenously in recombinant organisms. These approaches could lead to a reduction in the usage of traditional pesticides.

Description

This invention provides divinyl ether synthase genes, proteins, and methods for using them, including their expression in transgenic organisms and in the production of divinyl ether fatty acids. These compounds can be produced endogenously by plants or exogenously in recombinant organisms, and used to provide protection for plants against pathogens. The production method provided by this invention is less complex and potentially more cost effective than existing methods for producing similar compounds.

Benefits

Provides an efficient method for producing divinyl ethers fatty acids: Other fatty acids are obtained by more complex processes, such as chemical synthesis or extraction and purification from biological tissue.
Environmentally advantageous: These compounds can be used as an alternative to traditional pesticides to protect plants against pests.
Versatility production method: The compounds can be produced exogenously and applied to plants, or plants can be genetically engineered to produce the compounds as a built in protection system.

Applications

This invention is useful for producing recombinant divinyl ethers in E. coli and in plants. The compounds are useful for protecting plants from pests without the use of traditional pesticides that may harm the environment, wildlife, and/or humans.