Control of plant fatty acid biosynthesis pathways through controlled degradation of selected target proteins Researchers at Washington State University have discovered a novel regulatory mechanism, which notonly significantly increases seed oil production in seeds of plants, but can also improve plant stresstolerance as well as modify a broad range of other developmental aspects. The approach focuses on modifying the ability of a group of proteins called BPMs to recognize and triggerthe degradation of a wide range of substrate proteins. These substrate proteins are differenttranscription factors and each one is responsible for regulating developmental aspects such as root andshoot growth, flowering time, as well as seed size and seed oil content. These transcription factors alsoincrease plants’ ability to cope with a variety of abiotic and biotic stress conditions. The approach is todownregulate BPM expression and therefore reduce BPMs’ ability to recognize their substrates (thetranscription factors) thus reducing their ability to trigger the substrates for degradation. Thisdownregulation of BPM is conducted by introducing artificial microRNA under the control of a seed specificand inducible promoter. In addition, substrates can also be modified in a way such that they arenot recognized by BPM proteins. It thus becomes possible to engineer crop plants that are better able tocope with otherwise detrimental environmental stressors, without affecting other unwanteddevelopmental changes. This approach is novel because basic transcription levels of the substrates are not directly changed, aswas previously attempted. Instead, the activity of these transcription factors are modified by changingthe amount of BPM proteins in the cell or their ability to recognize and interact with their substrates.Loss of the BPM substrate adaptors has been shown by the inventors to significantly increase seed oilcontent with levels of more than 100% in comparison to wild type. Furthermore, because BPM proteinsand their substrates are highly conserved among plant species, one can expect that this technology isbroadly applicable to crop plants in general. Learn More Deah McGaughey Technology Licensing Associate Washington State University (509) 335-9502 deah.mcgaughey@wsu.edu Reference No: 1374-CAS-OC Bookmark this page Download as PDF Inventors Hanjo Hellmann Key Words