Developing Frontier Agri-Science Inc technology for crop drought tolerance

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Frontier Agri-Science Inc is a Canadian agricultural biotechnology company focused on crop trait development. One of their primary areas of focus is in developing drought tolerance which is the single most important problem in maintaining crop yields world-wide. There are now four gene targets that when altered using a biotechnological approach that Frontiers has demonstrated can give drought tolerance in several plant species including Arabidopsis, canola and turfgrass. However, for a small company like Frontiers it is far too expensive from a regulatory point of view to take a GM approach to crop improvement unless the technology is sold to one of the large seed companies. An alternative approach is to use nucleotide sequence variation that has been utilized for crop improvement since domestication first began. TILLING (Targeting Induced Local Lesions IN Genomes) is one such reverse genetic (non-transgenic) strategy that combines traditional mutagenesis with high-throughput, cost effective discovery of single-nucleotide changes. Frontier has recently compiled a series of rice TILLING lines, representing four genes that regulate the expression of their previously identified molecular genetic targets that confer abiotic stress resistance in Arabidopsis, canola and bentgrass. While rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the most agronomically important crops and is a staple food for more than half of the world's population, it is also an ideal genetic system to study traits of importance with the knowledge used transferred to other crops of interest including wheat and corn. Successful outcomes will allow Frontier to confidently invest the time and financial resources it will require to move forward with the development and marketing of new varieties and commercial relationships. This work represents the first step in establishing a collaborative relationship between Frontier and the Rothstein research group with the potential to act as a pipeline from technology discovery, through early stage demonstration and onward toward commercialization.