328 Cell biological approaches to achieve high frequencies of genetic transformation.

Yuri Gleba. Icon Genetics, Inc., Princeton, NJ, USA, and International Institute of Cell Biology, Kiev, Ukraine.

Although the first transgenic crops were introduced into production as recently as 1995, the total area covered by seven transgenic crops (maize, soybean, cotton, tomato, potato, canola, and sugar beets) reached 81 million acres in 1998. A total of 12 input traits or input trait combinations including resistance to lepidopteran insects and resistance to herbicides were available in 1998. The market for genetically modified agricultural products is projected to reach from $100 to $500 billion in revenues in 2010–2015, an enormous increase over current startup levels ($0.5 billion). The general consensus is that over 80% of sales 10–20 years from now will be generated by output traits, sold as plant-derived improved foods, pharmaceuticals and biopolymers. The cost of tools and the enabling technologies required to produce transgenic plants and manage the transgenes in crops is expected to increase proportionally to the research effort put into functional genomics. For major Life Science companies to successfully utilize the benefits of biotechnology, their immediate needs will be the availability of efficient transgene management technologies. This presentation will discuss the limitations of existing crop engineering tools, as well as describe some promising emerging technologies, such as novel transformation and line conversion methods based on integrative transgene locus or artificial plant chromosomes, gene regulation enabled through chemical gene switches, hybrid seed production methods, etc.