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Unintended consequence of plant transformation: biolistic transformation caused transpositional activation of an endogenous retrotransposon Tos17 in rice ssp. japonica cv. Matsumae

  • Genetic Transformation and Hybridization
  • Published:
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Abstract

Genetic instability could be provoked as an unintended consequence of genetic engineering in plants. Here, we report that the rice endogenous long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposon Tos17 was transpositionally activated only in transgenic calli and their regenerated plants produced by biolistic transformation in rice (Oryza sativa L.) ssp. japonica cv. Matsumae. Moreover, the transpositional activity of Tos17 was sustained after plant regeneration in the T0 generation, and produced new germinal insertions. In contrast, the element remained totally quiescent in calli and regenerated plants from tissue culture of this genotype. Nonetheless, transcriptional induction and cytosine demethylation of Tos17 were found to have occurred with no significant difference in both kinds of calli, tissue culture alone and transgenic. This suggests that callus culture is likely to have played an important role in destabilizing Tos17 in the direction towards transpositional activation, but that biolistic transformation is the direct causal factor.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team (PCSIRT) at the University (#IRT0519) and Bioforsk core funding (#1110222) to Dr. Jihong Liu Clarke. We are grateful to Dr. Rudolf Hegaman, Dr. Sonja S. Klemsdal and two anonymous reviewers for constructive suggestions to improve the manuscript, and to Dr. Nicholas Clarke for linguistic correction.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Molecular Epigenetics of MOE, Institute of Genetics and Cytology, Northeast Normal University, 130024, Changchun, China

    R. Wu, W. L. Guo, X. R. Wang, X. L. Wang, T. T. Zhuang & B. Liu

  2. Plant Health and Protection Division, Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research, Hoegskoleveien 7, 1432, Aas, Norway

    Jihong Liu Clarke

Authors
  1. R. Wu
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  2. W. L. Guo
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  3. X. R. Wang
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  4. X. L. Wang
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  5. T. T. Zhuang
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  6. Jihong Liu Clarke
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  7. B. Liu
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jihong Liu Clarke or B. Liu.

Additional information

Communicated by A. Atanassov.

R. Wu and W. L. Guo contributed equally to this work.

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Wu, R., Guo, W.L., Wang, X.R. et al. Unintended consequence of plant transformation: biolistic transformation caused transpositional activation of an endogenous retrotransposon Tos17 in rice ssp. japonica cv. Matsumae. Plant Cell Rep 28, 1043–1051 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-009-0704-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-009-0704-4

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