Dow AgroSciences LLC was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dow Chemical Company specializing in not only agricultural chemicals such as pesticides, but also seeds and biotechnology solutions. The company was based in Indianapolis, Indiana, in the United States. On 31 January 2006, Dow AgroSciences announced that it had received regulatory approval for the world's first plant-cell-produced vaccine against Newcastle disease virus from USDA Center for Veterinary Biologics. Dow AgroSciences operates brand names such as Sentricon, Vikane, Mycogen®, SmartStax®, Enlist™, Pfister Seed®, PhytoGen®, Prairie Brand Seed®, Alforex Seeds®, Profume, Dairyland Seed®, and Brodbeck Seed®.Dow AgroSciences also produces Omega-9 canola and sunflower oils.In 2017, the Dow Chemical Company merged into DowDuPont and in April 2019, the company's parent, Dow Inc. was separated into a public company via a corporate spin-off. The Dow AgroSciences business unit remained with DowDuPont and was spun off into Corteva Inc, on June 3, 2019.In October 2011, the U.S. Justice Department announced that a biotech specialist at Cargill had pleaded guilty to stealing information from Cargill and Dow AgroSciences. Kexue Huang, a Chinese national, was discovered to be passing information back to China from Dow for at least 3 years, from 2007 to 2010.Dow AgroSciences unit was divested to be part of a new company Corteva.
Reproductive and developmental toxicity studies have been conducted in rat and rabbit on triclopyr acid and its active-ingredient variants, triclopyr butoxyethyl ester (T-BEE) and triclopyr triethylamine salt (T-TEA). In this paper the results of a rat two-generation study on triclopyr acid are presented, together with a review of all the reproductive and developmental toxicity data available from the rat studies. In the rat two-generation study, triclopyr acid was administered in the diet, giving doses of 0, 5, 25 or 250 mg/kg bw per day. Parental toxicity, especially maternal toxicity, occurred at 250 mg/kg bw per day with reduced body weight and feed intake, organ weight changes, and kidney toxicity. Slight kidney toxicity was also evident at 25 mg/kg bw per day. Developmental toxicity, in the form of reduced postnatal survival in the F1 and F2 generations and reductions in pre-weaning offspring body weight in both generations, was seen only at a dose causing significant parental toxicity. There were no effects on any other reproductive or developmental parameters at any dose. It is concluded that the developmental toxicity, seen only at the highest dose, was most likely attributable to maternal toxicity. The no-observed-adverse-effect levels were 5 mg/kg bw per day for parental toxicity and 25 mg/kg bw per day for developmental toxicity. From the multigeneration and developmental toxicity studies on triclopyr and its variants, it can also be concluded that triclopyr is not specifically toxic to reproduction and is not selectively toxic to the embryo, fetus or neonate in the rat.
Mastigimas anjosi is an important pest of Cedrela fissilis in the southeastern and southern regions of Brazil. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of the temperature, relative humidity, rainfall and natural enemies on the flight activity of adults and the movement of M. anjosi nymphs, with two sampling methods, yellow sticky traps and direct collections on the leaves of C. fissilis trees. The sex ratio of this pest was also assessed. The number of M. anjosi individuals was negatively correlated with the minimum and maximum temperatures, with a population peak in late May and early June 2017. The numbers of individuals of this psyllid was positively correlated with the relative humidity and rainfall. Larvae and adults of Cycloneda sanguinea , Hippodamia convergens adults and Atopozelus opsimus nymphs and adults preyed upon M. anjosi adults and nymphs on C. fissilis leaves in the field. Mastigimas anjosi sex ratio was 0.46. Information about sampling methods of M. anjosi and its natural enemies is presented and can contribute to the integrated management of this pest in the field.
Although genetic transformation of soybean dates back to over two decades, the process remains inefficient. Here, we report the development of an organogenesis-based transformation method of soybean that resulted in an average transformation frequency of 18.7%. This improved method resorts to Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of the split-seed explant with an attached partial embryonic axis obtained from an imbibed seed. In addition to the split-seed explant, Agrobacterium strain and preparation were shown to be important for improved transformation. Transformation with Agrobacterium tumefaciens EHA105 generated higher transformation frequencies and number of low copy events compared to the strain EHA101. In this system, phosphinothricin acetyl transferase conferring tolerance to glufosinate was successfully employed for efficiently producing transgenic events. Around 48% of the T1 progeny was demonstrated to be heritable based on molecular analysis and screening with the herbicide Liberty®. This method was shown to be applicable to different genotypes and a few elite lines showed high transformation frequencies. This split-seed system with an attached partial embryonic axis serves not only as an efficient means for high throughput transgenic production for basic research studies but also for the commercial development of transgenic soybean products.
The selection of transcription terminators (TTs) for pairing with high expressing constitutive promoters in chimeric constructs is crucial to deliver optimal transgene expression in plants. In this study, the use of the native combinations of four polyubiquitin gene promoters and corresponding TTs resulted in up to >3-fold increase in transgene expression in maize. Of the eight polyubiquitin promoter and TT regulatory elements utilized, seven were novel and identified from the polyubiquitin genes of Brachypodium distachyon, Setaria italica, and Zea mays. Furthermore, gene expression driven by the Cassava mosaic virus promoter was studied by pairing the promoter with distinct TTs derived from the high expressing genes of Arabidopsis. Of the three TTs studied, the polyubiquitin10 gene TT produced the highest transgene expression in maize. Polyadenylation patterns and mRNA abundance from eight distinct TTs were analyzed using 3 '-RACE and next-generation sequencing. The results exhibited one to three unique polyadenylation sites in the TTs. The poly(A) site patterns for the StPinII TT were consistent when the same TT was deployed in chimeric constructs irrespective of the reporter gene and promoter used. Distal to the poly(A) sites, putative polyadenylation signals were identified in the near-upstream regions of the TTs based on previously reported mutagenesis and bioinformatics studies in rice and Arabidopsis. The putative polyadenylation signals were 9 to 11 nucleotides in length. Six of the eight TTs contained the putative polyadenylation signals that were overlaps of either canonical AAUAAA or AAUAAA-like polyadenylation signals and AUGAAU, a top-ranking-hexamer of rice and Arabidopsis gene near-upstream regions. Three of the polyubiquitin gene TTs contained the identical 9-nucleotide overlap, AUGAAUAAG, underscoring the functional significance of such overlaps in mRNA 3 ' end processing. In addition to identifying new combinations of regulatory elements for high constitutive trait gene expression in maize, this study demonstrated the importance of TTs for optimizing gene expression in plants. Learning from this study could be applied to other dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous plant species for transgene expression. Research on TTs is not limited to transgene expression but could be extended to the introduction of appropriate mutations into TTs via genome editing, paving the way for expression modulation of endogenous genes.
Intellectual property (IP) is an important consideration for entomological research and provides a means to capture value from new discoveries. Herein, we describe an analysis of more than 26 000 patent publications from 2007-2017 related to the field of entomology. These patents were divided among 8000 patent assignees; however, only 5% of the assignees had >= 10 patents. Corporations accounted for the largest share of patents (59%), with individuals (20%), academic institutions (17%) and government organizations (4%) making up the remaining segments. From 2007-2017 the number of entomological patents increased by 400%, with the largest number being from China. However, unlike patents from Europe, Japan or the US, which target a range of countries, the Chinese patents almost exclusively focus on China. Among the array of subjects covered are transgenic insects and plants, repellents, recombinant insect cells, with the highest proportion of patents focused on insecticides (39%), followed by insecticide mixtures (27%) and formulations (21%). The top 30 patent assignees included companies/institutions from China (18), Europe (3), Japan (6) and the US (3). Among the top 12 entities, IP from the US assignees was distributed across insecticides, mixtures and insecticidal traits while those from China were more focused on mixtures. However, given expanding IP numbers from China it is expected that in the future there will be a greater impact on new insecticides and related technologies. (c) 2020 Society of Chemical Industry
