Glyphosate-resistant crops: adoption, use and future considerations.

BACKGROUND: Glyphosate-resistant crops (GRCs) were first introduced in the United States in soybeans in 1996. Adoption has been very rapid in soybeans and cotton since introduction and has grown significantly in maize in recent years. GRCs have grown to over 74 million hectares in five crop species in 13 countries. The intent of this paper is to update the hectares planted and the use patterns of GRC globally, and to discuss briefly future applications and uses of the technology. RESULTS: The largest land areas of GRCs are occupied by soybean (54.2 million ha), maize (13.2 million ha), cotton (5.1 million ha), canola (2.3 million ha) and alfalfa (0.1 million ha). Currently, the USA, Argentina, Brazil and Canada have the largest plantings of GRCs. Herbicide use patterns would indicate that over 50% of glyphosate-resistant (GR) maize hectares and 70% of GR cotton hectares receive alternative mode-of-action treatments, while approximately 25% of GR soybeans receive such a treatment in the USA. Alternative herbicide use is likely driven by both agronomic need and herbicide resistance limitations in certain GR crops such as current GR cotton. Tillage practices in the USA indicate that > 65% of GR maize hectares, 70% of GR cotton hectares and 50% of GR soybean hectares received some tillage in the production system. Tillage was likely used for multiple purposes ranging from seed-bed preparation to weed management. CONCLUSION: GRCs represent one of the more rapidly adopted weed management technologies in recent history. Current use patterns would indicate that GRCs will likely continue to be a popular weed management choice that may also include the use of other herbicides to complement glyphosate. Stacking with other biotechnology traits will also give farmers the benefits and convenience of multiple pest control and quality trait technologies within a single seed.

The carboxyterminal processing protease of D1 protein: expression, purification and enzymology of the recombinant and native spinach proteins.

The carboxyterminal processing protease of D1 protein (CtpA) is predicted to be an excellent target for a general broad-spectrum herbicide. The gene for spinach CtpA has been expressed in Escherichia coli. The expressed protein that was found mainly in inclusion bodies has been purified and refolded on a nickel-chelate column. Active recombinant CtpA was recovered. Two assays for CtpA activity were developed, a medium-throughput HPLC assay using a fluorescent substrate and a high-throughput assay based on fluorescence polarization capable of application in a high-throughput 96-well plate format. This high-throughput assay was developed to screen chemistry for CtpA inhibitors. Native spinach CtpA was partially purified and the native and recombinant enzymes were compared kinetically for their K(m) and V(max) values using different peptide substrates. Native CtpA partially purified from spinach was shown to have similar kinetic properties to recombinant CtpA. Antibodies developed against the recombinant protein were used to estimate the in planta abundance of the native enzyme in spinach. Since only a small proportion of the recombinant protein is refolded during isolation and it appears that only a small proportion of this enzyme is active, size-exclusion chromatography and light scattering experiments were performed on rCtpA in order to gain insight into its structure and the reasons why most of the protein is not active. The use of rCtpA to screen for herbicidal compounds and the more general question of how good a herbicide target the enzyme is are discussed.

Discovery of imidazole glycerol phosphate dehydratase inhibitors through 3-D database searching.

Imidazole glycerol phosphate dehydratase (IGPD) has become an attractive target for herbicide discovery since it is present in plants and not in mammals. Currently no knowledge is available on the 3-D structure of the IGPD active site. Therefore, we used a pharmacophore model based on known inhibitors and 3-D database searches to identify new active compounds. In vitro testing of compounds from the database searches led to the identification of a class of pyrrole aldehydes as novel inhibitors of IGPD.