Technologies Available for License

2014-026: Transformation of Duckweed

Invention: 2014-045

Patent Status: U.S. Patent Number 9,957,514 was issued on May 1, 2018

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

Summary

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Microscope image of duckweed shows the frond structure, with each frond measuring approximately three millimeters across.

Lemnaceae plants also known as Duckweed are attractive options as biofuel feedstocks because of their robust growth in marginal aquatic environments and excellent metabolic characteristics. The current invention by researchers from Brookhaven National Laboratory and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory describes a method to stably transform Duckweed to overexpress any protein of interest.

Description

In brief the method includes the following steps: (a) inoculating, in liquid infection medium with actively growing duckweed callus with an engineered Agrobacterium that comprises a nucleic acid of interest, a selectable marker gene, and visible reporter gene (b) culturing the inoculated callus from step a on semi-solid nodule production medium that contains a selection substance and antibiotic (c) selecting, from cultured, inoculated callus of (b), transformed callus that expresses the visible reporter gene, (d) culturing, in liquid selection medium that comprises the selection substance and the antibiotic, selected callus of (c), and (e) culturing callus cultured in (d) on semi-solid medium, thereby producing genetically engineered progeny duckweed containing the nucleic acid of interest. In some embodiments, the semi-solid medium of (d) is semi solid selection medium that comprises the selection substance and the antibiotic.

Journal Publication & Intellectual Property

• Engineering triacylglycerol accumulation in duckweed(Lemna japonica) (.pdf)
• US 9,957,514 B2 (.pdf)