Patenting Drought Tolerance in Organisms

Dehydration is a major form of osmotic stress in cells. Physiological and molecular basis of dehydration stress responses in cells and organisms has been intensively researched over past years. Almost all of the patented dehydration stress tolerance genes from different organisms were used in engineering drought tolerance in crop plants. In spite of the moral, religious and ethical controversies surrounding use of foreign DNA sequences in crop plants, the numbers of such patents has grown tremendously in recent years. In future, we might witness another rise in patents on use of dehydration stress related gene sequences in creating environmental stress tolerant biological control agents for plant disease and insect pest management in agriculture. This review summarizes some of the recent published patents related to drought tolerance genes and their use.