Syngenta issued US patent for variety corn line NPAA3320; patent published online on Feb. 4

Nevin Barich

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia , February 13, 2014 (Life Science Weekly) – From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventor Goodwin, William H. (Stanton, MN), filed on July 13, 2012, was published online on February 4, 2014 (see also Syngenta Participations AG).

The patent's assignee for patent number 8642855 is Syngenta Participations AG (Basel, CH).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: "Maize (or corn; Zea mays L.) plant breeding is a process to develop improved maize germplasm in an inbred or hybrid plant. Maize plants can be self-pollinating or cross pollinating. Self pollination for several generations produces homozygosity at almost all gene loci, forming a uniform population of true breeding progeny, known as inbreds. Hybrids are developed by crossing two homozygous inbreds to produce heterozygous gene loci in hybrid plants and seeds. In this process, the inbred is emasculated and the pollen from the other inbred pollinates the emasculated inbred. Emasculation of the inbred can be done by chemical treatment of the plant, detasseling the seed parent, or the parent inbred can comprise a male sterility trait or transgene imparting sterility, eliminating the need for detasseling. This emasculated inbred, often referred to as the female, produces the hybrid seed, F1. The hybrid seed that is produced is heterozygous. However, the grain produced by a plant grown from F1 hybrid seed is referred to as F2 grain. F2 grain which is a plant part produced on the F1 plant will comprise segregating maize germplasm, even though the hybrid plant is heterozygous.

"Such heterozygosity in hybrids results in robust and vigorous plants. Inbred plants on the other hand are mostly homozygous, rendering them less vigorous. Inbred seed can be difficult to produce due to such decreased vigor. However, when two inbred lines are crossed, the resulting hybrid plant shows greatly increased vigor and seed yield compared to open pollinated, segregating maize plants. An important consequence of the homozygosity and homogeneity of inbred maize lines is that all hybrid seed and plants produced from any cross of two such lines will be the same. Thus the use of inbreds allows for the production of hybrid seed that can be readily reproduced.

"There are numerous stages in the development of any novel, desirable plant germplasm. Plant breeding begins with the analysis and definition of problems and weaknesses of the current germplasm, the establishment of program goals, and the definition of specific breeding objectives. The next step is selection of germplasm that possess the traits to meet the program goals. The aim is to combine in a single variety an improved combination of desirable traits from the parental germplasm. These important traits may include, for example, higher yield, resistance to diseases, fungus, bacteria and insects, better stems and roots, tolerance to drought and heat, improved nutritional quality, and better agronomic characteristics.

"Choice of breeding methods depends on the mode of plant reproduction, the heritability of the trait(s) being improved, and the type of cultivar used commercially (e.g., F1 hybrid cultivar, pure line cultivar, etc.). For highly heritable traits, a choice of superior individual plants evaluated at a single location may be effective, whereas for traits with low heritability, selection can be based on mean values obtained from replicated evaluations of families of related plants. Popular selection methods commonly include pedigree selection, modified pedigree selection, mass selection, and recurrent selection.

"The complexity of inheritance influences the choice of breeding method. Backcross breeding is used to transfer one or a few favorable genes for a highly heritable trait into a desirable cultivar. This approach has been used extensively for breeding disease-resistant cultivars and introducing transgenic events into maize germplasm. Thus, backcross breeding is useful for transferring genes for a simply inherited, highly heritable trait into a desirable homozygous cultivar or inbred line which is the recurrent parent. The source of the trait to be transferred is called the donor parent. After the initial cross, individuals possessing the phenotype of the donor parent are selected and repeatedly crossed (backcrossed) to the recurrent parent. The resulting plant is expected to have the attributes of the recurrent parent (e.g., cultivar) and the desirable trait transferred from the donor parent.

"Each breeding program generally includes a periodic, objective evaluation of the efficiency of the breeding procedure. Evaluation criteria vary depending on the goals and objectives, but should include gain from selection per year based on comparisons to an appropriate standard, overall value of the advanced breeding lines, and number of successful cultivars produced per unit of input (e.g., per year, per dollar expended, etc.).

"The ultimate objective of commercial corn breeding programs is to produce high yield, agronomically sound plants that perform well in particular regions of the U.S. Corn Belt, such as a plant of this invention."

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventor's summary information for this patent: "In one aspect, the present invention provides a seed of the maize inbred plant NPAA3320, representative seed of said plant having been deposited.

"In a further aspect, the present invention provides a maize inbred plant NPAA3320, representative seed of said NPAA3320 plant having been deposited. And the seed wherein said seed further comprises a mutant or transgenic gene that confers a characteristic selected from the group consisting of herbicide resistance, insect resistance and disease resistance male sterility, altered amylase, site-specific recombination, abiotic stress tolerance, altered phosphorus, altered antioxidants, altered fatty acids, altered amino acids, and altered carbohydrates.

"Further provided is a plant part of the plant of this invention, which includes but is not limited to pollen, protoplast, cell, tassel, anther, ovule or seed or grain.

"Additional aspects of this invention include a process for producing an F1 hybrid maize seed, said process comprising crossing a plant of maize inbred plant NPAA3320 with a different maize plant and harvesting the resultant F1 hybrid maize seed. A maize plant or plant part produced by growing the F1 hybrid maize seed is also provided herein. The present invention also provides a maize seed produced by crossing the plant of this invention with a different maize plant.

"The present invention further provides an F1 hybrid maize seed comprising an inbred maize plant cell of inbred maize plant NPAA3320.

"A method is also provided for producing maize seed comprising growing the plant of this invention until seed is produced and harvesting the seed, wherein the harvested seed is inbred or hybrid or haploid seed. And a method of producing seed, comprising crossing the plant of the invention with itself or a second maize plant. Seed produced by this method is also provided herein. Hybrid seed produced by crossing the invention with a second distinct corn plant and the plant and plant parts on this hybrid plant grown from the hybrid seed.

"Additional aspects of this invention include a process of introducing a desired heritable trait into maize inbred plant NPAA3320, comprising: (a) crossing NPAA3320 plants grown from NPAA3320 seed with plants of another maize plant that comprise a desired trait to produce hybrid progeny plants, (b) selecting hybrid progeny plants that have the desired trait to produce selected hybrid progeny plants; © crossing the selected progeny plants with the NPAA3320 plants to produce backcross progeny plants; (d) selecting for backcross progeny plants that have the desired trait to produce selected backcross progeny plants; and (e) repeating as necessary backcrossing and step (d) to produce backcross progeny plants of subsequent generations that comprise the desired trait and all of the physiological and morphological characteristics of maize inbred plant NPAA3320 when grown in the same environmental conditions. In some embodiments of this invention, the desired trait can be, but is not limited to, waxy starch, male sterility, herbicide resistance, nematode resistance, modified amylase, altered starch, thermotolerant amylase, insect resistance, modified carbohydrate metabolism, protein metabolism, fatty acid metabolism, bacterial resistance, disease resistance, fungal disease resistance, viral disease resistance, or any combination thereof. A plant produced by this process is also provided herein. Or a conversion of maize variety X, wherein representative seed of said maize variety X comprising at least one new trait wherein said conversions had the morphological and physiological traits of maize and said trait confers a characteristic selected from the group consisting of altered amylase, abiotic stress and biotic stress tolerance, herbicide, insect, fungal, bacterial and disease resistance.

"Furthermore, the present invention provides a maize plant having all the physiological and morphological characteristics of inbred plant NPAA3320, wherein a sample of the seed of inbred plant NPAA3320 was deposited under ATCC Accession Number PTA-12526. The maize plant of this invention can comprise a genome which further comprises at least one transgene and/or the maize plant can exhibit a trait conferred by a transgene. In some embodiments of this invention, the transgene can confer a trait of herbicide resistance or tolerance; insect resistance or tolerance; resistance or tolerance to bacterial, fungal, nematode or viral disease; waxy starch; altered starch, male sterility or restoration of male fertility, modified carbohydrate metabolism, modified fatty acid metabolism, or any combination thereof.

"Additionally provided herein is a method of producing a maize plant derived from the inbred plant NPAA3320, comprising the steps of: (a) growing a progeny plant wherein the inbred plant is one parent of the progeny; (b) crossing the progeny plant with itself or a different plant to produce a seed of a progeny plant of a subsequent generation; © growing a progeny plant of a subsequent generation from said seed and crossing the progeny plant of a subsequent generation with itself or a different plant; and (d) repeating steps (b) and © for an additional 0-5 generations to produce a maize plant derived from the inbred plant NPAA3320.

"Another aspect of this invention includes a method for developing a maize plant in a maize plant breeding program, comprising applying plant breeding techniques comprising recurrent selection, backcrossing, pedigree breeding, marker enhanced selection, haploid/dihaploid production, or transformation to the maize plant of this invention, or its parts, wherein application of said techniques results in development of a maize plant.

"Furthermore, the present invention provides a method of producing a commodity plant product comprising growing the plant from the seed of this invention or a part thereof and producing said commodity plant product, wherein said commodity plant product can be, but is not limited to a protein concentrate, a protein isolate, starch, meal, flour, oil therefrom, or any combination thereof.

"A method is also provided of producing a treated seed of this invention, comprising obtaining the seed of NPAA3320 and treating said seed."

For additional information on this patent, see: Goodwin, William H.. Variety Corn Line NPAA3320. U.S. Patent Number 8642855, filed July 13, 2012, and published online on February 4, 2014. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=76&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=3753&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=20140204.PD.&OS=ISD/20140204&RS=ISD/20140204

Keywords for this news article include: Amylases, Herbicides, Pesticides, Glycoside Hydrolases, Enzymes and Coenzymes, Syngenta Participations AG.

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