Opportunity for

• Industry partners, R&D funding bodies, plant breeding and life science companies interested in licensing and commercialisation.

Opportunity description

Industry challenge:

One of the limiting factors of grain fill is temperature. For example, in wheat every 1°C rise above the optimum growth temperature yield is reduced by 3-4%. Grain yield, based upon seed number per unit area and individual seed weight, is largely dependent on starch deposition in the growing endosperm of many seeds. In a dry wheat seed for example, starch is the most abundant component accounting for 75-85% of grain dry weight. Temperatures above 25°C significantly reduce soluble starch synthase enzyme activity in the wheat endosperm, which is the primary reason of loss of starch deposition at elevated temperatures.

Current opportunity:

K-State researchers have identified thermotolerant soluble starch synthase (SSS) genes in a variety of species and expressed those in transgenic wheat. At temperatures above optimum growth, they found that starch deposition and grain fill is significantly increased compared to non-transgenic controls. For example, when grain fill temperatures were set at 34/28 °C (d/n), transgenic lines demonstrated between 20 and 34% increase in 1000 seed weight compared to controls. This technology may also have applications in more tolerant crops such as sorghum and corn. Further results show in vitro growth assays of transgenic maize producing a 9-fold increase in growth at 35 °C compared to control cultures.

Key advantages:

• Mitigates Heat Stress-Induced Yield Loss
• Enhances grain fill and starch deposition even in elevated temperatures.
• Versatile Applicability: Extends to various cereal crops and potentially other monocots and dicots.

This technology is patented under US Patent No. 10,557,144 and is available for license or option during the technology development period.

K-State is seeking industry partners to advance and commercialize this innovation.

Potential other applications:

• Wheat production and abiotic resistance development
• Private and public variety development.

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