Patent ID: 9738901
Date: 2017-08-22
CPC Classifications: C12N

Claim:
1. A method of engineering a plant to increase the galactan content in a desired tissue, the method comprising: introducing an expression cassette into the plant, wherein the expression cassette comprises a polynucleotide encoding a β-1,4-galactan synthase (GALS) having beta-1,4 galactosyltransferase activity operably linked to a heterologous promoter, wherein the GALS has at least 70% identity to SEQ ID NO:1, and comprises (F/Y/V)G(N/S/T)AAALFV(L/Q)MGAYRGGP (SEQ ID NO:46), SKPIHVYGKPWYKCEWISN (SEQ ID NO:47), KILPDWGYGRVYTVVVVNCTF (SEQ ID NO:48), GG(K/R)LI(L/V/I) (SEQ ID NO:49), Y(D/E)YLYCGSSL(Y/F)G (SEQ ID NO:50), REWMAYHAWFFG (SEQ ID NO:51), SHFVFHDAGG (SEQ ID NO:52), QNIRDQ (SEQ ID NO:53), GYYYNQFLIVNDCLHRYRYAANWTFFDVDEY (SEQ ID NO:54), FTIEQNPMS (SEQ ID NO:55), WGFEKLLFK (SEQ ID NO:56), RRDRKYAIQ (SEQ ID NO:57), RYYHYHNSI (SEQ ID NO:58), and ELCRE (SEQ ID NO:59); culturing the plant under conditions in which the GALS is expressed; and selecting a plant that has increased beta-1,4-galactan content or increased galactose content in the tissue in which the GALS1 is expressed compared to a wild-type plant that is not engineered to contain the expression cassette.