| Agrobacterium |
a naturally occurring soil bacterium that can be used to transfer genes into a plant cell and thus create a transgenic plant |
| Anti-fungal Protein |
a protein that limits the growth of or kills a fungal pathogen |
| Bioassay |
a biological test to assess whether a molecule limits the growth or kills a biological organism such as a fungus or an insect |
| Bt |
Bacillus thuringiensis, a naturally occurring soil bacterium that produces insecticidal toxins |
| Bt Technology |
an existing insect resistance technology which involves production of the Bt-insecticidal toxins in transgenic plants |
| Construct |
a synthetic gene or series of genes that have been created in the laboratory. Constructs carry the genetic code for production of proteins of interest or a desired trait in a transgenic organism (eg a plant) |
| Defensin |
an antifungal protein |
| Event |
an event occurs when a transgene is inserted into the host DNA (eg the plant DNA). Different insertions are classified as separate events |
| Expression |
when a gene is turned on to produce a protein |
| Freedom to Operate |
rights to all the intellectual property needed to commercialise a transgenic plant |
| Fungal Pathogens |
any fungus causing disease |
| Fusarium Wilt |
a disease caused by Fusarium species which causes wilt in affected plants |
| Germplasm |
the heredity material from an organism such as an elite plant cultivar (seed) |
| Heterozygous |
any cell or organism having different genes at the same position in a pair of chromosomes. A hemizygous transgenic plant has only one copy of the transgene |
| Homozygous |
any cell or organism having identical genes at the same position in a pair of chromosomes |
| Hybrid |
the offspring of plants of different species or different varieties of the same species |
| MGEV |
Hexima’s Multi-Gene Expression Vehicle, a technology which facilitates the production of multiple proteins in a plant from a single transgene |
| Peptide |
a small chain of amino acids |
| Promoters |
a piece of DNA that functions as a switch to turn genes on and off |
| Protein |
a linear polymer of amino acids linked in a specific sequence determined by a gene |
| Proteinase |
an enzyme that catalyses the splitting of proteins into smaller peptides and amino acids |
Proteinase Inhibitors (PI’s) |
proteins that inhibit the catalytic activity of proteinases |
| Stacking |
the combination of several Traits in a crop seed |
Selectable Marker |
a gene and it’s product that can be used to select transgenic cells. For example, a gene that confers resistance to an antibiotic or a herbicide |
| Trait |
a character conferred either by conventional breeding or by gene technology to a plant, such as insect resistance or fungal resistance |
Transient Expression |
temporary or short lived production of a protein from a transgene |
| Verticillium Wilt |
a disease caused by Verticillium dahliae which causes wilt in affected plants |
