Abstract
Tea is one of the major crops in Asia and Africa, and its improvement by genetic modification is important for economy of many tea-producing regions. Although somatic embryos derived from cotyledon explants have been transformed with Agrobacterium, the leaves of several commercially important tea cultivars have remained recalcitrant to transformation, largely due to bactericidal effect of polyphenols that are exuded by tea leaves in vitro. Moreover, the commonly used polyphenol adsorbents and antioxidants cannot overcome this problem. Leaf explants, however, are more desirable than cotyledon-derived somatic embryos, especially when it is necessary to further improve a selected elite and also retain its superior traits. Thus, we developed a procedure for Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation of tea leaf explants which is based on the presence of l-glutamine in the co-cultivation medium. We then showed that the transformation process is facilitated via a protective action of l-glutamine against bactericidal effects of leaf polyphenols without affecting the bacterial virulence (vir) gene expression.
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Abbreviations
- AS:
-
Acetosyringone
- BM:
-
Basal Murashige and Skoog's medium
- SEM:
-
Secondary somatic embryogenesis medium
- SRM:
-
Shoot regeneration medium from leaf explants
- 2,4-D:
-
2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid
- YMB:
-
Yeast mannitol broth
- LB:
-
Luria Bertani medium
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Acknowledgments
IS was supported by a Senior Research Fellowship from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of the Government of India, and AB was supported by the Raman Research Fellowship from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of the Government of India. The work in the VC laboratory is supported by grants from NIH, NSF, USDA, BARD, BSF, and CDR-USAID.
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Sandal, I., Saini, U., Lacroix, B. et al. Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation of tea leaf explants: effects of counteracting bactericidity of leaf polyphenols without loss of bacterial virulence. Plant Cell Rep 26, 169–176 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-006-0211-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-006-0211-9