Yield10 Bioscience Announces Collaboration with National Research Council of Canada to Improve Yield and Drought Tolerance in Wheat
The goal of this two-year collaborative project is to identify new traits for wheat that significantly impact yield and drought tolerance. Under the collaboration, Metabolix Oilseeds and Yield10 will provide access to their proprietary C4000 series of traits, which include global regulatory genes, or global transcription factors ("GTFs"), that the Company has shown to significantly increase photosynthesis and yield in certain crops including rice. Rice has the same C3 photosynthesis system as wheat. Yield10 discovered the C4000 series of traits using its T3 Platform, a novel bioinformatics tool for gene discovery. Research with the C4000 series of traits will allow the discovery of additional gene targets in wheat that could enhance the yield and/or drought tolerance of the crop.
Wheat is a major global staple food crop where significant yield increases could play a major role in feeding the world. Since Canada is a major wheat producer, developing technology to significantly increase wheat yield is a great opportunity to further develop the country's agricultural economy.
"Our T3 Platform may represent a novel way to identify new yield and drought tolerance traits that could lead to the development of improved varieties of wheat," commented
"We appreciate the commitment of resources that the National Research Council will make to this collaboration to identify novel traits for wheat," said
Background on T3 Platform and GTFs from Yield10
Previously, Yield10 demonstrated that modulating the expression of GTFs, identified using its T3 Platform gene discovery approach, in switchgrass can result in significantly increased photosynthesis and carbon flow through central metabolism resulting in increased biomass yield. More recently, Yield10 reported that early work in rice with one of the GTFs produced rice plants with more tillers, as well as an increased aboveground biomass. Results of this work are ongoing to determine the impact on seed yield. The results to date in both switchgrass and rice suggest that new traits identified using Yield10's T3 Platform have the potential to increase grain yield in wheat.
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Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements
This press release
contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The forward-looking statements in this release do not constitute guarantees of future performance. Investors are cautioned that statements in this press release which are not strictly historical, including, without limitation, statements regarding the Company's intentions with regard to achieving the research objectives of the collaboration, including producing new varieties of wheat that are higher yielding and/or drought tolerant, constitute forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated, including the risks and uncertainties detailed
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Contacts: Metabolix Oilseeds andSource:Yield10 Bioscience :Lynne H. Brum , (617) 682-4693, LBrum@yield10bio.com Investor Relations Contact:Amato and Partners, LLC 90 Park Avenue , 17th FloorNew York, NY 10016 admin@amatoandpartners.com
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