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Efficient Agrobacterium transformation of elite wheat germplasm without selection

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Abstract

A previously reported Agrobacterium tumefaciens transformation system that transformed wheat cultivar Fielder at high efficiency was shown to also transform eight out of nine Triticum aestivum (hexaploid wheat) cultivars tested and two Triticum turgidum (durum wheat) cultivars. Transformation efficiencies of these wheat lines ranged from 1.5 to 51 %. Included amongst this germplasm were elite Australian hexaploid wheat cultivars that are currently in commercial cultivation and two of these cultivars, Gladius and Westonia, were transformed at 32 and 45 % efficiency, respectively. Similar high transformation efficiencies were observed for durum wheat cultivars Kronos (51 %) and Stewart (26 %). This highly efficient transformation system was used to generate transgenic plants in the absence of selection and high heritability of unselected transgenes was observed. Selectable marker free transgenic wheat plants were produced at 3 % efficiency. These data demonstrate highly efficient Agrobacterium transformation of diverse wheat germplasm, including elite cultivars, which enables routine production of selectable marker free transgenics.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge Smitha Louis and Dhara Bhatt for their tissue culture skills and Soma Chakraborti for technical support. We thank Professor J Dubcovsky for providing a Yr36 clone. In addition, we wish to acknowledge the invaluable training we received at Japan Tobacco laboratories in the “Purewheat” transformation procedure which enabled us to rapidly establish this procedure in our laboratory.

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  1. CSIRO Plant Industry, Clunies Ross Street, Box 1600, Canberra, ACT, 2614, Australia

    Terese Richardson, Jenny Thistleton, T. J. Higgins, Crispin Howitt & Michael Ayliffe

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  1. Terese Richardson
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  2. Jenny Thistleton
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  3. T. J. Higgins
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Correspondence to Michael Ayliffe.

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Richardson, T., Thistleton, J., Higgins, T.J. et al. Efficient Agrobacterium transformation of elite wheat germplasm without selection. Plant Cell Tiss Organ Cult 119, 647–659 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-014-0564-7

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