Brassica plants with increased photosynthetic rate and seed yield


Green Biotech

Ref.-No.: 0804-6474-IKF

Enhancing crop yield is a key objective in plant breeding, and it underpins efforts to achieve global food security amid projected population growth. Recently, improving photosynthesis has emerged as a promising strategy for yield improvement. One way to improve photosynthesis is to engineer plants that can assimilate more carbon dioxide (CO₂). This in turn can increase biomass which can help obtain greater harvests and improved resource-use efficiency. This increase in photosynthetic capacity also has the potential added benefit of reducing atmospheric CO₂—a major greenhouse gas—by enhancing carbon storage in plant biomass, thus contributing to the mitigation of CO₂-driven global warming.

Technology

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research have found that by increasing the expression of the SQUAMOSA PROMOTER BINDING PROTEIN-LIKE GENE 9 (SPL9 gene) in Brassica napus plants the photosynthetic rate can be significantly increased. The scientists stably transformed the plants with a microRNA resistant version of a SPL9 gene and observed an increase in both photosynthesis and seed mass.

Opportunity

We are now looking for a commercial partner to further develop this technology.

Patent Information

An international PCT patent application was filed on November, 28th 2024: WO2025114408.

Publication

Li et al., Current Biology 2024. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.07.068

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Contact

Senior Patent- & License Manager

Dr. Ingrid Kapser-Fischer

Nutritionist, M.Sc.
Phone: +49 89 / 29 09 19-19
Email:
kapser-fischer@max-planck-innovation.de