Plant Genetic Systems
Encyclopedia
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
company located in Ghent
Ghent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
. The focus of its activities is the genetic engineering of plants. The company is best known for its work in the development of insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
-resistant transgenic plants.
Its origin goes back to the work of Marc Van Montagu
Marc Van Montagu
Marc Van Montagu is a Belgian molecular biologist. He was full Professor and director of the Laboratory of Genetics at the faculty of Sciences at Ghent University and scientific director of the Genetics Department of the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology...
and Jeff Schell at the University of Ghent who were among the first to assemble a practical system for genetic engineering of plants. They developed a vector system for transferring foreign genes into the plant genome, by using the Ti plasmid
Ti plasmid
Ti plasmid is a circular plasmid that often, but not always, is a part of the genetic equipment that Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Agrobacterium rhizogenes use to transduce its genetic material to plants. Ti stands for tumor inducing. The Ti plasmid is lost when Agrobacterium is grown above 28°C....
of Agrobacterium tumefaciens
Agrobacterium tumefaciens
Agrobacterium tumefaciens is the causal agent of crown gall disease in over 140 species of dicot. It is a rod shaped, Gram negative soil bacterium...
. They also found a way to make plant cells resistant to the antibiotic kanamycin
Kanamycin
Kanamycin sulfate is an aminoglycoside antibiotic, available in oral, intravenous, and intramuscular forms, and used to treat a wide variety of infections. Kanamycin is isolated from Streptomyces kanamyceticus.-Mechanism:...
by transferring a bacterial neomycin
Neomycin
Neomycin is an aminoglycoside antibiotic that is found in many topical medications such as creams, ointments, and eyedrops. The discovery of Neomycin dates back to 1949. It was discovered in the lab of Selman Waksman, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and medicine in 1951...
phosphotransferase gene into the plant genome. PGS was the first company (in 1985) to develop genetically engineered (tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
) plants with insect tolerance by expressing genes encoding for insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis
Bacillus thuringiensis
Bacillus thuringiensis is a Gram-positive, soil-dwelling bacterium, commonly used as a biological pesticide; alternatively, the Cry toxin may be extracted and used as a pesticide. B...
(Bt).
History
The company was founded in 1982 by Marc Van MontaguMarc Van Montagu
Marc Van Montagu is a Belgian molecular biologist. He was full Professor and director of the Laboratory of Genetics at the faculty of Sciences at Ghent University and scientific director of the Genetics Department of the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology...
and Jeff Schell who worked at the University of Ghent, Belgium. In 1996 the company was acquired by AgrEvo. In 2000, Aventis CropScience
Aventis
Aventis was a pharmaceutical and lab assay testing company. It was formed in 1999 when Rhône-Poulenc S.A. merged with Hoechst AG. The merged company was based in Strasbourg, France. With its headquarters in Strasbourg, Aventis was the product of the first transnational merger to combine large...
was formed through a merger of AgrEvo and Rhône-Poulenc Agro
Rhône-Poulenc
-History of the company:The Company was founded in 1928 through the merger of Société des Usines Chimiques du Rhône from Lyon and Établissements Poulenc Frères from Paris founded by Étienne Poulenc, a 19th century Parisian apothecary and brought to prominence by his second and third sons Emile...
. In 2002, Bayer CropScience is formed through Bayer's acquisition of Aventis CropScience.
See also
- CropDesignCropDesignCropDesign is a biotech company located in Ghent, Belgium. The company develops a portfolio of agronomic traits for the global commercial seed markets. It has developed a technology platform to discover genetic traits for the improvement of corn, rice and other plants...
- Flanders Interuniversity Institute of Biotechnology (VIB)
- FlandersBioFlandersBioFlandersBio is a non-profit organization which represents the cluster of Flemish life sciences in Belgium. The members of FlandersBio are organizations involved with Research and Development, and production in life sciences, or organizations and companies servicing Flemish life sciences...
- Marc ZabeauMarc ZabeauMarc Zabeau is a Belgian scientist and businessman.- Biography :Marc Zabeau graduated in 1971 as licentiate in zoology at the University of Ghent and obtained a PhD in 1974 on the genetics of Escherichia coli in the lab of Jeff Schell....