Rehovot, Israel
December 19, 2007
Three years of field trials of
Evo133 consistently demonstrate yield increases of up to 25%
under normal conditions and up to 20% under abiotic stress
conditions
Evogene Ltd. (TASE: EVGN) today announced successful third
year field trial results for Evo133, one of its candidate genes
for improving plant yield and tolerance to abiotic stress
conditions. Transgenic tomato plants
over expressing Evo133 demonstrated an increase of up to 25%
under normal conditions, and up to 20% under abiotic stress
conditions compared to control plants under the same conditions.
Results from this third field trial are consistent with two
previous field trials conducted in 2005 and 2006.
Evo133 is one of a group of genes discovered by Evogene in 2003,
which were predicted to provide improved plant yield and
tolerance to abiotic stress conditions, such as drought, salt
and heat stress. These genes were predicted in silico using
Evogene's unique computational gene discovery platform, the
ATHLETE, and then experimentally validated in model plants.
Evo133 was further validated in field trials in transgenic
tomato plants, and has now successfully completed its third year
of such trials.
Evogene has entered into collaborations with leading ag-bio
companies for the evaluation of Evo133 in major field crops. To
date, these collaborations include Bayer CropScience for rice,
Biogemma SAS for corn, Mertec LLC for soybean and CIRAD (Centre
de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le
Développement), a French Research Institute, for cotton. In
addition, Evogene is itself further developing Evo133 in canola
using recently established “in house” transformation
capabilities. Initial results from these efforts by Evogene and
its collaborators are expected during 2008 in corn and canola,
and 2009 in soybean and cotton.
Abiotic stress conditions, such as drought, salty water, soil
salinity and heat stress currently have a massive impact on crop
productivity and agricultural supply, and this impact is
continuing to increase due to global warming and climate
changes. Therefore, developing plants displaying improved
tolerance to abiotic stress would have an enormous economic
potential, and is one of the main goals for leading seed
companies.
"The successful third year field trials for Evo133 are another
demonstration of the unique value of Evogene's ATHLETE gene
prediction platform, combining plant trait understandings with
advanced and proprietary computational biology", said Dr. Hagai
Karchi, Evogene's VP development and CTO. "An important feature
of ATHLETE is that it is a constantly improving platform. For
example, Evogene has already used ATHLETE to complete a second
round of gene discovery for improving plant abiotic stress
tolerance, with the resulting discovery of a number of
additional candidate genes for this important trait”, Dr. Karchi
concluded.
Ofer Haviv, Evogene’s President and CEO added "With respect to
our business model, we are delighted that leading seed and
ag-biotech companies are recognizing the potential of Evo133 and
other genes in our rapidly increasing inventory of gene
discoveries for important traits. As we have previously stated,
we intend to continue focusing our gene discovery and validation
efforts mainly on increasing yield, improving drought tolerance
and Nitrogen use efficiency, in addition to our efforts in the
field of biofuels."
Evogene’s mission is to be a world leader in delivering
improved plant traits to the agrobiotechnology and biofuel
industries through the use of a continuously improving
proprietary platform combining state-of-the-art computational
genomics, molecular biology and advanced breeding methods.
Evogene’s current trait development portfolio includes: abiotic
stress tolerance and yield, improving nitrogen use efficiency,
enhancement of cotton fiber quality, increasing yield for canola
and soybean and plant manufacturing of therapeutic proteins.
Evogene was created in 2002 by the spin-off of the
agro-biotechnology division of Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq: CGEN).
Evogene’s core insilico technology, the ATHLETE, is based on
Compugen’s proprietary LEADS computational platform. Evogene
completed an IPO on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in June 2007. |
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