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LaCl3 treatment improves Agrobacterium-mediated immature embryo genetic transformation frequency of maize

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Abstract

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We report an optimized transformation system that uses a LaCl3 pretreatment (a Ca2+ channel blocker) for enhancing Agrobacterium-mediated infection of immature embryos and improving the genetic transformation frequency of maize.

Abstract

Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation of immature embryos is important for gene-function studies and molecular breeding of maize. However, the relatively low genetic transformation frequency remains a bottleneck for applicability of this method, especially on commercial scale. We report that pretreatment of immature embryos with LaCl3 (a Ca2+ channel blocker) improves the infection frequency of Agrobacterium tumefaciens, increases the proportion of positive callus, yields more positive regenerated plantlets, and increases the transformation frequency from 8.40 to 17.60% for maize. This optimization is a novel method for improving the frequency of plant genetic transformations mediated by Agrobacterium tumefaciens.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant U1706201).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Crop Functional Genomics and Molecular Breeding, College of Biological Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China

    Shengnan Liu, Yunlu Shi, Fang Liu, Yan Guo & Minhui Lu

Authors
  1. Shengnan Liu
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  2. Yunlu Shi
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  3. Fang Liu
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  4. Yan Guo
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  5. Minhui Lu
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Contributions

MHL and YG conceived and designed the study. SNL and YLS conducted the experiments. FL conducted copy number analysis. SNL analyzed data. SNL, MHL, and YG wrote the manuscript. All the authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Minhui Lu.

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Communicated by Yuree Lee.

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Liu, S., Shi, Y., Liu, F. et al. LaCl3 treatment improves Agrobacterium-mediated immature embryo genetic transformation frequency of maize. Plant Cell Rep 41, 1439–1448 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-022-02867-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-022-02867-w

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