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Excision of a selective marker in transgenic rice using a novel Cre/loxP system controlled by a floral specific promoter

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Abstract

Based on the Cre/loxP system, we have developed a novel marker-free system mediating a direct auto-excision of loxP-flanked marker genes from T1 transgenic rice without any treatment or further offspring crossing. To achieve this, the floral-specific promoter OsMADS45 was isolated from rice and the expression patterns of OsMADS45 promoter was characterised by using the pOs45:GUS transgenic plants. Furthermore, the binary vector with Cre recombinase under the control of OsMADS45 promoter was constructed and introduced into rice by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and transgenic rice plants were generated. Southern blot analysis showed that auto-excision of the selective markers occurred in some T1 progeny of the transgenic plants, suggesting that a high auto-excision frequency can be achieved with our Cre/loxP system. This auto-excision strategy provides an efficient way of removing the selectable marker gene from transgenic rice.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. KSCX2-SW-316), the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Research Projects; grants no. 2002CB111301 and 2002CCA03200) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 30270758).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Plant Genomics and National Centre for Plant Gene Research (Beijing), Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Xianquan Bai, Qiuyun Wang & Chengcai Chu

  2. Sci-Tech Innovation Centre of Hainan State Farm, Haikou, Hainan, 570206, China

    Xianquan Bai

  3. Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100039, China

    Qiuyun Wang

Authors
  1. Xianquan Bai
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  2. Qiuyun Wang
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  3. Chengcai Chu
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Correspondence to Chengcai Chu.

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Xianquan Bai and Qiuyun Wang contributed equally to the work.

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Bai, X., Wang, Q. & Chu, C. Excision of a selective marker in transgenic rice using a novel Cre/loxP system controlled by a floral specific promoter. Transgenic Res 17, 1035–1043 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11248-008-9182-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11248-008-9182-7

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