All chemical energy on the earth is derived from sunlight captured by plants. Therefore, the plant genome represents the entire set of genetic information ultimately responsible for the production of food, feed, fiber and fuel in the biosphere. This gene set is surprisingly small but has a wide range of different variants, or alleles that are responsible for the amazing capabilities of plant life on Earth. Some plants can survive treacherous growth conditions, while others have nutritious grains, oils, fruits or roots.
Researchers strive to discover new genes and new gene variants that enable the improvement of crops.
Unfortunately, the genomes of crop plants are prohibitively large, and gene discovery is in plants is expensive and time consuming. This process removes repetitive junk DNA from our proprietary libraries. By eliminating methylated DNA fragments derived from repetitive regions of the genome, GeneThresher TM leaves behind gene-rich regions that are not methylated. Orion has a world-wide exclusive commercial license from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to this gene enrichment technology. Over the past 9 months, Orion has demonstrated the efficacy of GeneThresher TM in a broad range of plants including all the major row crops.