Abstract
A single Agrobacterium strain harbouring two binary plasmids was successfully used for the first time to develop a marker-free transgenic rice of improved nutritional value. Sixty-eight T0 co-transformants were obtained in three indica rice cultivars—two popular high-yielding Bangladeshi varieties (BR28 and BR29), and one high-iron rice cultivar (IR68144). Marker-free lines were obtained from 14 out of 24 selected co-transformants screened in the T1 generation. The accumulation of total carotenoids in polished T2 rice seeds of the primary transgenic VPBR29-17-37 reached levels of up to 3.0 μg/g, with the level of β-carotene reaching 1.8 μg/g. In the cultivars BR28 and IR68144, total carotenoid levels in the transformants reached 2.0 μg/g of polished rice seeds. The levels of lutein and other carotenoids in the seeds were also significantly enhanced. T1 plants obtained from primary transgenics with simple gene-integration patterns tended to have a lower carotenoid content than the original parental lines. This study describes the development of marker-free transgenic rice lines containing high levels of carotenoids, and addresses the relationship between the rearrangement of transgenes and the presence of metabolic end products in transgenic rice.
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Acknowledgements
Financial support from USAID and the Rockefeller Foundation is acknowledged. Thanks are due to Syngenta for an international collaborative programme. The work has been carried out in compliance with the current laws governing genetic experimentation in the country concerned.
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Communicated by R. Hagemann
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Parkhi, V., Rai, M., Tan, J. et al. Molecular characterization of marker-free transgenic lines of indica rice that accumulate carotenoids in seed endosperm. Mol Genet Genomics 274, 325–336 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-005-0030-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-005-0030-7