Menu

About Us

Cambia is an independent non-profit institute creating new technologies, tools and paradigms to promote change and enable innovation.

Read More

Barley

Barley – Patent assigned to Sapporo Breweries Ltd (JP)

Barley is one of the major cereal crops worldwide and as such biotechnological genetic improvement technologies are a desirable avenue for the introduction of novel traits, like disease resistance or modified starch production.

This patent discloses a method for transformation of barley using Agrobacterium in combination with acetosyringone (a phenolic compound that induces DNA transfer by Agrobacterium) and suspending this mixture together with callus cells as target tissue for transformation.

Specific Patent Information

Patent Number Title, Independent Claims and Summary of Claims Assignee
US 6291244 B1

  • Earliest priority – 25 July 1997
  • Filed – 24 Jan 2000
  • Granted – 18 Sep 2001
  • Expected expiry – 23 Jan 2020
 Title – Method of producing transformed cells of barley

Claim 11. A method of producing transformed cells of barley, comprising:
(a) suspending, in a suspension medium containing 200 to 1000 mg/l acetosyringone, a microorganism belonging to the genus Agrobacterium comprising a foreign gene;
(b) culturing, in a co-culture medium containing about 1000 mg/l acetosyringone, the microorganism belonging to the genus Agrobacterium and barley callus cells;
(c) separating the cultured barley callus cells from the co-culture medium; and
(d) placing the separated barley callus cells on a selective medium to select the transformed cells into which the foreign gene has been introduced.

The present invention provides variations on existing protocols for the transformation of cereals and other monocots. In the case of barley the concentration of the widely used phenolic compound acetosyringone has been adjusted to the special requirements given for the interaction between Agrobacterium and the plant cells to achieve optimal transformation efficiency. If sub-optimal concentrations are used or a different or no phenolic compound is utilized, thereby possibly sacrificing transformation efficiency, infringement can likely be avoided.

Sapporo Breweries Ltd (JP)
Remarks related patents and applications in Japan JP 2002509440 T2 (deemed withdrawn), Australia AU 79377/98 (lapsed) and WO 99/04618.

Note: Patent information on this page was last updated on 6 February 2006.