INHERITANCE OF FOREIGN GENES IN TRANSGENIC AZALEA PLANTS GENERATED BY AGROBACTERIUM-MEDIATED TRANSFORMATION

The evergreen azalea (Rhododendron simsii Planch.) is a very important ornamental crop in Belgium and Western Europe.
A lot of the possibilities of conventional breeding have been explored in the last decades.
The different Rhododendron species show a high degree of phenotypic variation.
But the combination of certain traits from these plants in a new azalea cultivar is not possible, because of crossing barriers.
Therefore the introduction of specific new traits in the evergreen azalea via classical breeding is difficult.
An alternative strategy to broaden the genetic variability is to make use of genetic engineering.

Transformation of evergreen azalea was carried out using Agrobacterium tumefaciens AGLOpMOG410, containing the -glucuronidase (gus) – intron reporter gene and the neomycin phosphotransferase II (nptII) gene.

Fertile transgenic azalea plants were obtained.
Transformants were morphologically identical to untransformed plants.
The expression of the gus gene in the primary transgenic plants was demonstrated by Northern blot analysis and histochemical GUS assays.
Besides genetic transformation of the plants was confirmed by their ability to produce callus and to regenerate on Anderson medium containing kanamycin.
The inheritance of the foreign marker genes in sexually derived progeny was tested.
Segregation of the gus gene occurred in a Mendelian way.

XXV International Horticultural Congress, Part 11: Application of Biotechnology and Molecular Biology and Breeding – Gene Expression and Molecular Breeding, Genome Analysis.

M. Mertens, J. Heursel, E. Van Bockstaele, M. De Loose

Agrobacterium tumefaciens, Rhododendron simsii, azalea, genetic transformation, transgene inheritance

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2000.521.13