Appeal No. 2005-1383
Application No. 09/364,847
catalytically active enzymes which act on substrate in successive reactions in a PHA
biosynthetic pathway and which are under the control of a single promoter. Attention is
directed to column 22, lines 26-30, which states that plasmids can be constructed which
express the β-ketothiolase and acetoacetyl-CoA reductase genes from A. eutrophus.
Attention is further directed to Figure 3 which shows an isolated 2 kb DNA fragment
from A. eutrophus which encodes the β-ketothiolase (nucleotides 40-1219) and the
acetoacetyl-CoA reductase (nucleotides 1296 to 2034) genes. See also columns 11-12,
which disclose two plasmids, pZT1 and pZT2, which encode the β-ketothiolase and
acetoacetyl-CoA reductase genes derived from Z. ramigera. The only difference
between the plasmids (and enzymes which they encode) taught by Peoples and the
present invention is that the catalytically active enzymes disclosed in the patent are
present in tandem (fused, if you will) on a single DNA fragment. Thus, when said DNA
is expressed (due to the processing which occurs within the microorganism) two
separate enzymes are produced, rather than a fused protein comprising both. 4
Peoples further discloses the construction of plasmids which encode either
(i) a promoter derived from A. eutrophus (the PHB polymerase or phbC promoter), the
PHA polymerase structural gene (derived from P. oleovorans), and the ORF2 region of
the PHA polymerase gene (ORF2 is said to be a protein cotranscribed with the PHA
4 We point out that dependent claim 3, states that the linker Ln can comprise between
zero and 50 amino acids. Thus, because independent claim 1 contains all of the
limitations present in dependent claim 3, we find that the protein fusion recited in claim 1
need not have any amino acids between the two catalytically active enzymes E1 and
E2.
14
Page: Previous 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007