Technologies Available for License

2024-013: Precise bioengineering of flowering time for food and biomass production

Invention: 2024-013

For technical and licensing related questions, email tcp@bnl.gov.

Summary

In crop plants, floral transition or flowering is a key trait that controls the switch between reproductive growth for seed production and vegetative growth for biomass production. For food production, people prefer earlier flowering so they can harvest the plants multiple times in one year. However, for bioenergy production, later flowering is preferred so that plants have more time to grow and accumulate biomass in stems and leaves. Biological processes such as flowering depend on gene expression programs that involve the transcriptional regulation of thousands of genes. The innovation describes manipulation of crop flowering time by modifying the cis-regulatory element. In contrast to the traditional strategy, this approach of removing or adding the cis-regulatory element in the promoter of desired genes provides a more precise way to reprogram the flowering gene regulatory networks with much fewer side effects.