A method to transforming a plant includes coating a microparticle having a diameter of 0.3 to 0.9 μm with at least one type of nucleic acid, bombarding a shoot apex of the plant with the coated microparticle using a gene gun, growing the shoot apex bombarded with the coated microparticle to obtain a plant body, and selecting a transformed plant body from the plant body. The shoot apex is selected from the group consisting of a shoot apex of an embryo of a fully mature seed, a shoot apex of a young bud of a tuber, and a shoot apex of a terminal bud or a lateral bud.

The invention provides methods of engineering plants having lignin deposition or xylan deposition that is substantially localized to the vessels of xylem tissue in the plant. The invention also provides methods of engineering plants to increase production of a desired biosynthetic product, e.g., to have increased secondary cell wall deposition or increased wax/cutin accumulation. The engineered plants of the present invention have use in bioenergy production, e.g., by improving the density and the digestibility of biomass derived from the plant and to improve water usage requirements.

A method for editing a plant genome includes coating a microparticle with at least one type of nucleic acid and/or at least one type of protein, introducing a deletion, insertion, or substitution into a target site in the genome of a plant by bombarding a shoot apex of the plant with the coated microparticle using a gene gun, growing the shoot apex bombarded with the coated microparticle to obtain a plant body, and selecting a genome-edited plant body from the plant body. The shoot apex of the plant is selected from the group consisting of a shoot apex of an embryo of a fully mature seed, a shoot apex of a young bud of a tuber, and a shoot apex of a terminal bud or a lateral bud.

The present invention relates to transgenic plants with vascular xylem tissue-targeting overexpression of tissue factors involved in vascular xylem cell development.

The present invention is directed to promoter sequences and promoter control elements, polynucleotide constructs comprising the promoters and control elements, and methods of identifying the promoters, control elements, or fragments thereof. The invention further relates to the use of the present promoters or promoter control elements to modulate transcript levels.

The invention provides promoter sequences that regulate specific expression of operably linked sequences in developing xylem cells and/or in developing xylem tissue. The developing xylem-specific sequences are exemplified by the DX5, DX8, DX11, and DX15 promoters, portions thereof, and homologs thereof. The invention further provides expression vectors, cells, tissues and plants that contain the invention's sequences. The compositions of the invention and methods of using them are useful in, for example, improving the quantity (biomass) and/or the quality (wood density, lignin content, sugar content etc.) of expressed biomass feedstock products that may be used for bioenergy, biorefinary, and generating wood products such as pulp, paper, and solid wood.

This disclosure concerns compositions and methods for promoting transcription of a nucleotide sequence in a plant or plant cell, employing a Zea mays GRMZM2G144030 promoter. Some embodiments relate to a Zea mays GRMZM2G144030 promoter that functions in plants to promote transcription of operably linked nucleotide sequences. Other embodiments relate to a Zea mays GRMZM2G144030 3′UTR that functions in plants to terminate transcription of operably linked nucleotide sequences.

The present invention relates to genetically modified plants comprising a heterologous nucleic acid construct comprising a promoter sequence operably linked to a coding sequence encoding a gene product. The invention further relates to methods for producing such plants.

The present invention is directed to promoter sequences and promoter control elements, polynucleotide constructs comprising the promoters and control elements, and methods of identifying the promoters, control elements, or fragments thereof. The invention further relates to the use of the present promoters or promoter control elements to modulate transcript levels.

The present invention relates to a nucleic acid construct. The nucleic acid construct includes a nucleic acid molecule configured to silence or reduce the expression of StBEL11 and/or StBEL29 and variants thereof, a 5′ DNA promoter sequence, and a 3′ terminator sequence, where the first nucleic acid molecule, the promoter sequence, and the terminator sequence are operatively coupled to permit transcription of the first nucleic acid molecule. The present invention is also directed to vectors, host cells, transgenic plants, and transgenic plant seeds, as well as non-transgenic mutant plants, and methods for altering tuber yield in a plant.