Abstract
Agrobacterium tumefaciens efficiently transforms most plants. A few dicotyledonous plants and most monocotyledonous plants are, however, recalcitrant to A. tumefaciens infection. We investigated whether the constitutive synthesis of a high level of the T-strand DNA intermediate can improve the transformation efficiency of plants. We previously described a mutation in the vir gene regulator virG, virGN54D, that allows constitutive expression of the vir genes. We also described the isolation of a mutant plasmid that is present at a significantly high level in A. tumefaciens. The two mutations were combined to produce an A. tumefaciens strain that synthesizes a high level of T-strand DNA in an inducer-independent manner. DNA transfer efficiency of the mutant was measured by monitoring β-glucuronidase (GUS) expression in a transient transfer assay. A significant increase in the efficiency of DNA transfer to both rice and soybean was observed with the double mutant. The presence of virGN54D had a major positive effect on transformation efficiency.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 150-156 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Plant Cell Reports |
Volume | 20 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2001 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Acknowledgements This work was supported by USDA prime grant no. 96–34340–2711 from Purdue University.
Keywords
- Agrobacterium tumefaciens
- GUS gene expression
- Plant transformation
- Rice
- Soybean