Monsanto issued US patent for plants and seeds of hybrid corn variety CH126458

Nevin Barich

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia , December 19, 2013 (Biotech Week) – From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Trifunovic, Slobodan (Ankeny, IA); Ochs, Nicholas (Burlington, IL), filed on April 24, 2012, was published online on December 10, 2013 (see also Biotechnology Companies).

The patent's assignee for patent number 8604315 is Monsanto Technology LLC (St. Louis, MO).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: "The present invention relates generally to the field of corn breeding. In particular, the invention relates to corn seed and plants of the hybrid variety designated CH126458, and derivatives and tissue cultures thereof.

"The goal of field crop breeding is to combine various desirable traits in a single variety/hybrid. Such desirable traits include greater yield, better stalks, better roots, resistance to insecticides, herbicides, pests, and disease, tolerance to heat and drought, reduced time to crop maturity, better agronomic quality, higher nutritional value, and uniformity in germination times, stand establishment, growth rate, maturity, and fruit size.

"Breeding techniques take advantage of a plant's method of pollination. There are two general methods of pollination: a plant self-pollinates if pollen from one flower is transferred to the same or another flower of the same plant. A plant cross-pollinates if pollen comes to it from a flower on a different plant.

"Corn plants (Zea mays L.) can be bred by both self-pollination and cross-pollination. Both types of pollination involve the corn plant's flowers. Corn has separate male and female flowers on the same plant, located on the tassel and the ear, respectively. Natural pollination occurs in corn when wind blows pollen from the tassels to the silks that protrude from the tops of the ear shoot.

"Plants that have been self-pollinated and selected for type over many generations become homozygous at almost all gene loci and produce a uniform population of true breeding progeny, a homozygous plant. A cross between two such homozygous plants produces a uniform population of hybrid plants that are heterozygous for many gene loci. Conversely, a cross of two plants each heterozygous at a number of loci produces a population of hybrid plants that differ genetically and are not uniform. The resulting non-uniformity makes performance unpredictable.

"The development of uniform corn plant hybrids requires the development of homozygous inbred plants, the crossing of these inbred plants, and the evaluation of the crosses. Pedigree breeding and recurrent selection are examples of breeding methods used to develop hybrid parent plants from breeding populations. Those breeding methods combine the genetic backgrounds from two or more inbred plants or various other broad-based sources into breeding pools from which new inbred plants are developed by selfing and selection of desired phenotypes. The new inbreds are crossed with other inbred plants and the hybrids from these crosses are evaluated to determine which of those have commercial potential.

"North American farmers plant tens of millions of acres of corn at the present time and there are extensive national and international commercial corn breeding programs. A continuing goal of these corn breeding programs is to develop corn hybrids that are based on stable inbred plants and have one or more desirable characteristics. To accomplish this goal, the corn breeder must select and develop superior inbred parental plants."

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors' summary information for this patent: "In one aspect, the present invention provides a corn plant of the hybrid variety designated CH126458. Also provided are corn plants having all the physiological and morphological characteristics of the hybrid corn variety CH126458. A hybrid corn plant of the invention may further comprise a cytoplasmic or nuclear factor that is capable of conferring male sterility or otherwise preventing self-pollination, such as by self-incompatibility. Parts of the corn plant of the present invention are also provided, for example, pollen obtained from a hybrid plant and an ovule of the hybrid plant. The invention also concerns seed of the hybrid corn variety CH126458. The hybrid corn seed of the invention may be provided as a population of corn seed of the variety designated CH126458.

"In a further aspect, the invention provides a composition comprising a seed of corn variety CH126458 comprised in plant seed growth media. In certain embodiments, the plant seed growth media is a soil or synthetic cultivation medium. In specific embodiments, the growth medium may be comprised in a container or may, for example, be soil in a field.

"In another aspect of the invention, the hybrid corn variety CH126458 is provided comprising an added desired trait. The desired trait may be a genetic locus that is a dominant or recessive allele. In certain embodiments of the invention, the genetic locus confers traits such as, for example, male sterility, waxy starch, herbicide resistance, insect resistance, resistance to bacterial, fungal, nematode or viral disease, and altered fatty acid, phytate or carbohydrate metabolism. The genetic locus may be a naturally occurring corn gene introduced into the genome of a parent of the variety by backcrossing, a natural or induced mutation, or a transgene introduced through genetic transformation techniques.

"When introduced through transformation, a genetic locus may comprise one or more transgenes integrated at a single chromosomal location.

"In yet another aspect of the invention, a hybrid corn plant of the variety designated CH126458 is provided, wherein a cytoplasmically-inherited trait has been introduced into said hybrid plant. Such cytoplasmically-inherited traits are passed to progeny through the female parent in a particular cross. An exemplary cytoplasmically-inherited trait is the male sterility trait. Cytoplasmic-male sterility (CMS) is a pollen abortion phenomenon determined by the interaction between the genes in the cytoplasm and the nucleus. Alteration in the mitochondrial genome and the lack of restorer genes in the nucleus will lead to pollen abortion. With either a normal cytoplasm or the presence of restorer gene(s) in the nucleus, the plant will produce pollen normally. A CMS plant can be pollinated by a maintainer version of the same variety, which has a normal cytoplasm but lacks the restorer gene(s) in the nucleus, and continues to be male sterile in the next generation. The male fertility of a CMS plant can be restored by a restorer version of the same variety, which must have the restorer gene(s) in the nucleus. With the restorer gene(s) in the nucleus, the offspring of the male-sterile plant can produce normal pollen grains and propagate. A cytoplasmically inherited trait may be a naturally occurring maize trait or a trait introduced through genetic transformation techniques.

"In another aspect of the invention, a tissue culture of regenerable cells of a plant of variety CH126458 is provided. The tissue culture will preferably be capable of regenerating plants capable of expressing all of the physiological and morphological characteristics of the variety, and of regenerating plants having substantially the same genotype as other plants of the variety. Examples of some of the physiological and morphological characteristics of the variety CH126458 include characteristics related to yield, maturity, and kernel quality, each of which is specifically disclosed herein. The regenerable cells in such tissue cultures may, for example, be derived from embryos, meristematic cells, immature tassels, microspores, pollen, leaves, anthers, roots, root tips, silk, flowers, kernels, ears, cobs, husks, or stalks, or from callus or protoplasts derived from those tissues. Still further, the present invention provides corn plants regenerated from the tissue cultures of the invention, the plants having all the physiological and morphological characteristics of variety CH126458.

"In still another aspect, the invention provides a method of producing hybrid corn seed comprising crossing a plant of variety CV897903 with a plant of variety CV651587. In a cross, either parent may serve as the male or female. Processes are also provided for producing corn seeds or plants, which processes generally comprise crossing a first parent corn plant with a second parent corn plant, wherein at least one of the first or second parent corn plants is a plant of the variety designated CH126458. In such crossing, either parent may serve as the male or female parent. These processes may be further exemplified as processes for preparing hybrid corn seed or plants, wherein a first hybrid corn plant is crossed with a second corn plant of a different, distinct variety to provide a hybrid that has, as one of its parents, the hybrid corn plant variety CH126458. In these processes, crossing will result in the production of seed. The seed production occurs regardless of whether the seed is collected or not.

"In one embodiment of the invention, the first step in 'crossing' comprises planting, often in pollinating proximity, seeds of a first and second parent corn plant, and in many cases, seeds of a first corn plant and a second, distinct corn plant. Where the plants are not in pollinating proximity, pollination can nevertheless be accomplished by transferring a pollen or tassel bag from one plant to the other as described below.

"A second step comprises cultivating or growing the seeds of said first and second parent corn plants into plants that bear flowers (corn bears both male flowers (tassels) and female flowers (silks) in separate anatomical structures on the same plant). A third step comprises preventing self-pollination of the plants, i.e., preventing the silks of a plant from being fertilized by any plant of the same variety, including the same plant. This can be done, for example, by emasculating the male flowers of the first or second parent corn plant, (i.e., treating or manipulating the flowers so as to prevent pollen production, in order to produce an emasculated parent corn plant). Self-incompatibility systems may also be used in some hybrid crops for the same purpose. Self-incompatible plants still shed viable pollen and can pollinate plants of other varieties but are incapable of pollinating themselves or other plants of the same variety.

"A fourth step may comprise allowing cross-pollination to occur between the first and second parent corn plants. When the plants are not in pollinating proximity, this is done by placing a bag, usually paper or glassine, over the tassels of the first plant and another bag over the silks of the incipient ear on the second plant. The bags are left in place for at least 24 hours. Since pollen is viable for less than 24 hours, this assures that the silks are not pollinated from other pollen sources, that any stray pollen on the tassels of the first plant is dead, and that the only pollen transferred comes from the first plant. The pollen bag over the tassel of the first plant is then shaken vigorously to enhance release of pollen from the tassels, and the shoot bag is removed from the silks of the incipient ear on the second plant. Finally, the pollen bag is removed from the tassel of the first plant and is placed over the silks of the incipient ear of the second plant, shaken again and left in place. Yet another step comprises harvesting the seeds from at least one of the parent corn plants. The harvested seed can be grown to produce a corn plant or hybrid corn plant.

"The present invention also provides corn seed and plants produced by a process that comprises crossing a first parent corn plant with a second parent corn plant, wherein at least one of the first or second parent corn plants is a plant of the variety designated CH126458. In one embodiment of the invention, corn seed and plants produced by the process are first generation hybrid corn seed and plants produced by crossing an inbred with another, distinct inbred. The present invention further contemplates seed of an F.sub.1 hybrid corn plant. Therefore, certain exemplary embodiments of the invention provide an F.sub.1 hybrid corn plant and seed thereof, specifically the hybrid variety designated CH126458.

"Such a plant can be analyzed by its 'genetic complement.' This term is used to refer to the aggregate of nucleotide sequences, the expression of which defines the phenotype of, for example, a corn plant, or a cell or tissue of that plant. A genetic complement thus represents the genetic make up of an cell, tissue or plant. The invention thus provides corn plant cells that have a genetic complement in accordance with the corn plant cells disclosed herein, and plants, seeds and diploid plants containing such cells.

"Plant genetic complements may be assessed by genetic marker profiles, and by the expression of phenotypic traits that are characteristic of the expression of the genetic complement, e.g., marker typing profiles. It is known in the art that such complements may also be identified by marker types including, but not limited to, Simple Sequence Repeats (SSRs), Simple Sequence Length Polymorphisms (SSLPs) (Williams et al., Nucleic Acids Res., 18:6531-6535, 1990), Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNAs (RAPDs), DNA Amplification Fingerprinting (DAF), Sequence Characterized Amplified Regions (SCARs), Arbitrary Primed Polymerase Chain Reaction (AP-PCR), Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphisms (AFLPs) (EP 0 534 858, specifically incorporated herein by reference in its entirety), and Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) (Wang et al., Science, 280:1077-1082, 1998)."

For additional information on this patent, see: Trifunovic, Slobodan; Ochs, Nicholas. Plants and Seeds of Hybrid Corn Variety CH126458. U.S. Patent Number 8604315, filed April 24, 2012, and published online on December 10, 2013. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=72&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=3567&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=20131210.PD.&OS=ISD/20131210&RS=ISD/20131210

Keywords for this news article include: Pollen, Cytoplasm, Flowering Tops, Monsanto Company, Plant Germ Cells, Plant Structures, Intracellular Space, Biotechnology Companies, Monsanto Technology LLC.

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