'Fingerprinting' Process Offers Patent Protection Option
RALEIGH, N.C., Dec. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Poinsettias -- white or red,
mottled or green -- are the cheerful plant favored as the harbinger of
wintertime holidays.
Every year growers race to develop them in new colors, breeding bigger
or different plant forms, greater disease resistance or longevity. During
the past few years, purveyors of the florid flora have even pushed the
color envelope with artificially painted, glittered and variously tinted
offerings to broaden sales and boost earnings.
But with six million poinsettia plants sold wholesale for $18 million
last year alone by North Carolina growers -- second only to California --
Euphorbia pulcherrima is just another name for a cash crop worth stealing.
More than 175 patented poinsettia cultivars have been named by various
breeders and registered under the Plant Protection Act -- and sometimes new
or unusual ones are illegally reproduced and sold.
Where there's ill will, however, there's often a way to stop it.
Two pathologists at North Carolina State University have found a way to
trick the trade in purloined poinsettias. Like CSI investigators in a
holiday television special, the NCSU researchers have uncovered molecular
markers that are like poinsettias' genetic fingerprints. The technology
provides a genetic trail that can catch a posie pirate red-handed.
Though the findings have been intriguing, and may open some new lines
of research, the economics of poinsettia patent protection aren't likely to
allow widespread use of the technology, according to the researchers,
Elizabeth Parks and James Moyer.
Parks, research analyst in the NCSU Department of Plant Pathology, and
Moyer, professor and head of that department, have published their
poinsettia findings in the Journal of the American Society of Horticultural
Science.
The problem is they found that the best way to identify the family
history of plants such as poinsettias uses a process called amplified
fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). And the AFLP technology is owned by a
Dutch firm, Keygene, a service provider in the genetic analysis of plants,
animals and micro-organisms.
"Keygene is very cooperative on a scientific basis," said Moyer. The
firm has research collaborations with university scientists in many
nations. "But they retain fairly tight control over commercial applications
of AFLP. And even though poinsettia growing is big business, there are only
a few cultivars that would be considered leaders at any given time, worthy
of AFLP analysis for suspected patent infringement."
The NCSU scientists said the primary value of their work has been to
demonstrate the proof-of-concept: fingering the ideal poinsettia genetic
fingerprint, if and when it's needed. So far it doesn't look like a
candidate for a for-profit spinoff venture, they say. "This was a 'funzie'
for us, a kind of side project," said Moyer.
The core of his research program is molecular genetics and the
evolution of plant viruses. The North Carolina Biotechnology Center
supported that aspect of Moyer's research in 1999 with a $40,000 grant for
his study of tomato viruses. But typical of research programs garnering the
Biotechnology Center's grant funding, Moyer's NCSU lab routinely has
several lines of inquiry going simultaneously.
So even if poinsettia printing never becomes a blockbuster patent-
protection pursuit, the NCSU scientists have contributed some understanding
of America's most popular potted plant that rings up more than 60 million
sales each holiday season worth $270 million.
The Biotechnology Center is a private, non-profit corporation supported
by the N.C. General Assembly. Its mission is to provide long-term economic
and societal benefits to North Carolina by supporting biotechnology
research, business and education statewide.
SOURCE North Carolina Biotechnology Center
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Related links:
http://www.ncbiotech.org
CONTACT:
Jim Shamp, News & Publications Editor of
North Carolina Biotechnology Center, +1-919-541-9366, or
jim_shamp@ncbiotech.org; Dave Caldwell, North Carolina State
University, +1-919-513-3127 or dave_caldwell@ncsu.edu
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