Abstract
Transgenic petunia (Petunia hybrida Vilm.) plants were obtained from Agrobacterium-mediated shoot apex transformation. Studies at the phenotypic as well as molecular level established both the presence of the NPT II (neomycin phosphotransferase II) and GUS (β-glucuronidase) genes and their level of activity. Twenty-nine primary transformed plants showed varying patterns of phenotype expression of both genes. NPT II and GUS expression in 7 primary plants over a 4-month interval showed varying levels of gene expression within and among individual plants. All primary transgenic plants were self-pollinated and backcrossed to establish the inheritance patterns of both genes. Mendelian and non-Mendelian inheritance patterns for both genes were observed. Analysis of the progeny showed poor transmission of the foreign genes through the pollen especially when two or more bands were present in the Southern hybridization. Most plants whose progeny segregated in Mendelian ratios for either the NPT II or GUS gene had just one copy of the gene. In this study where both foreign genes were examined in both self and test crosses, no transgenic plant showed Mendelian patterns of inheritance for both foreign traits.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Budar F, Thia-toong L, Van Montagu M, Hernalsteens JP (1986) Agrobacterium- mediated gene transfer results mainly in transgenic plants transmitting T-DNA as a single Mendelian factor. Genetics 114:303–313
Dellaporta SL, Wood J, Hicks JB (1985) Maize DNA miniprep. In: R Malmberg et al. (eds) Molecular biology of plants. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., pp 36–37
Deroles SC, Gardner RC (1988) Expression and inheritance of kanamycin resistance in a large number of transgenic petunias generated by Agrobacterium- mediated transformation. Plant Mol Biol 11:355–364
Feldmann KA, Marks MD (1987) Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of germinating seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana: a non-tissue culture approach. Mol Gen Genet 208:1–9
Hobbs SLA, Kpodar P, Delong CMO (1990) The effect of T-DNA copy number, position and methylation on reporter gene expression in tobacco transformants. Plant Mol Biol 15:851–864
Jefferson RA (1987) Assaying chimeric genes in plants: the GUS gene fusion system. Plant Mol Biol Rep 5:387–405
Kilby NJ, Ottoline Leyser HM, Furner IJ (1992) Promoter methylation and progressive transgene inactivation in Arabidopsis. Plant Mol Biol 20:103–112
Linn F, Heidmann I, Saedler H, Meyer P (1990) Epigenetic changes in the expression of the maize A1 gene in Petunia hybrida: rule of numbers of integrated gene copies and state of methylation. Mol Gen Genet 222:329–336
Matzke MA, Matzke AJM (1991) Differential inactivation and methylation of a transgene in plants by two suppressor loci containing homologous sequences. Plant Mol Biol 16:821–830
Meyer P, Linn F, Heidmann I, Meyer H, Niedenhof I, Saedler H (1992) Endogenous and environmental factors influence 35 S promoter methylation of a maize A1 gene construct in transgenic petunia and its colour phenotype. Mol Gen Genet 231:345–352
Murashige T, Skoog F (1962) A revised medium for rapid growth and bioassays with tobacco tissue cultures. Physiol Plant 15:473–497
Ottaviani MP, Smits T, Hanisch ten Cate CH (1983) Differential methylation and expression of the β-glucuronidase and neomycin phosphotransferase genes in transgenic plants of potato cv. ‘Bintje’. Plant Sci 88:73–81
Staebell M, Tomes D, Weissinger A, Maddock S, Marsch W, Huffman G, Bauer R, Ross M, Howard J (1990) A quantitative assay for neomycin phosphotransferase activity in plants. Anal Biochem 185:319–323
Ulian EC, Smith RH, Gould JH, McKnight TD (1988) Transformation of plants via the shoot apex. In Vitro Cell Dev Biol 21:951–954
Umbeck P, Swain W, Yang NS (1989) Inheritance and expression of genes for kanamycin and chloramphenicol resistance in transgenic cotton plants. Crop Sci 29:196–201
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Communicated by P. M. A. Tigerstedt
Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ulian, E.C., Magill, J.M. & Smith, R.H. Expression and inheritance pattern of two foreign genes in petunia. Theoret. Appl. Genetics 88, 433–440 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00223657
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00223657