PARIS ¿ Genset SA and Ceres Inc. said they completed a major gene sequencing program in the agricultural genetics research collaboration they entered into in January 1998. They have achieved the full-length cDNA sequencing of the plant species Arabidopsis thaliana, acquiring comprehensive information about its gene sequences and encoded proteins.

The sequencing program was completed several months ago, in fact, and Los Angeles-based Ceres, a privately owned plant genomics company, has been feeding full-length sequence information from Arabidopsis thaliana and other plant species through its integrated assembly line of functional genomics technologies, generating extensive knowledge about plant genes and their functions and reinforcing its intellectual property portfolio.

Ceres said it filed patent applications covering ¿several tens of thousands of full-length genes, their regulatory regions and their functions in various plant species, including important crop plants.¿ According to President and CEO Walter De Logi, ¿this knowledge can be applied to target discovery for crop protection and molecular assisted breeding, as well as the development of high-value, genetically enhanced plants.¿

Ceres points out that A. thaliana is the international model for conducting functional genomics studies in plants. ¿By using gene sequence and function information in Arabidopsis, we can rapidly capture gene sequence and function information in commercial crop species,¿ ex plained its chief scientific officer, Richard Flavell. That was because the company¿s integrated genomics technologies enable it to ¿rapidly determine the functions of the thousands of novel gene sequences we have identified and use them to develop new traits in important crop plants.¿

By collaborating with the Paris-based human genomics company Genset, Ceres supplemented its plant genomics and bioinformatics expertise with Genset¿s proprietary full-length cDNA technology and its DNA sequencing and synthesis know-how.