Patent ID: 8829170

Claim:
A construct system comprising: (i) a first construct comprising in 5′ to 3′ linear form a first Rep protein recognition sequence recognizable by a geminivirus Rep protein, the 3′ end of an intron, the 3′ end portion of a gene of interest operably linked to a terminator, a promoter operably linked to the 5′ end of the gene of interest, the 5′ end of the intron and a second Rep protein recognition sequence recognizable by the geminivirus Rep protein; wherein the Rep recognition sequences are compatible with each other to promote circularization, wherein the 3′ end and the 5′ end intron sequences are capable of splicing; wherein the 3′ end and 5′ end portions of the gene of interest together constitute the coding region of the gene of interest; wherein upon circularization, the 3′ end of the intron and the 5′ end of the intron form an intronic sequence, and the 5′ end portion of the gene of interest is separated from said 3′ end portion of the gene of interest by the intronic sequence; wherein upon excision of the intronic sequence, the 5′ end portion of the gene of interest is operably linked to the 3′ end portion of the gene of interest; and wherein upon expression of the gene of interest, the gene of interest exhibits an activity or property or a capacity to exhibit an activity or property not present in the separate portions of the gene of interest prior to circularization of the construct and prior to excision of the intronic sequence; and (ii) a second construct comprising a nucleotide sequence encoding the geminivirus Rep protein operably linked to a promoter.