Interference 103,781
Q. All right. Now, can you explain to me, Dr. Adang,
if all you need to do is look at codon usage and codon
frequency and design a gene accordingly, and that would
work, why it was that there was this delay between 1985,
when you had the idea of modifying the native Bt gene to
add a greater number of plant-preferred codons, and perhaps
as late as 1987, when the first Agrigenetics-constructed
codon usage table had been developed? Why did you wait so
long?
THE WITNESS: . . . Well, we knew - we knew we were
getting truncated RNA, which was a disappointment. We
knew we were getting low levels of Bt protein expression.
. . . We thought that we could pin down regions that
would, save us money, save us time, so that we could,
you know, we could define certain regions that would be
our first regions to change along the lines of codon,
preferred codons and codon frequency. So we really
thought we were taking a shortcut by just doing those
fatal, quick experiments. And so we thought we could
get to building a gene faster that way.
We also had constraints in the program of needing a
slightly improved expression very quickly. Okay? In that
Agrigenetics was going through a period of instability,
where the partnership was expiring, Lubrizol was acquiring
us we were faced with the need to get plants a little bit
better, a little bit faster. And so I would say that that
detracted from, or rather - not detracted. I think that
whenever you’re organizing a program, you’re choosing
priorities. And one of our priorities in addition to - so
that the gene fixing priority, was also just enhancing the
expression of wild type genes a little bit so that we could
satisfy the upper management.
Q. In the effort -
A. . . . To summarize, we had these sort of practical
factors of meeting short-term deadlines, and then we also
had this belief that we could find the region that would be
most easily fixed.
. . . . .
You know, I think that there was a time when we really
needed codon usage tables to be put to use. Okay? We felt
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