ISHS Acta Horticulturae 309: XV International Symposium on Fruit Tree Diseases
TRANSFORMATION AND REGENERATION OF PLANTS OF PRUNUS ARMENIACA WITH THE COAT PROTEIN GENE OF PLUM POX VIRUS |
| Authors: | M. Laimer da Câmara Machado, A. da Câmara Machado, D. Mattanovich, F. Regner, H. Steinkellner, V. Hanzer, H. Weiss, E. Knapp, H. Katinger |
| Abstract:
Improvement of fruit trees through traditional breeding methods is a long-term effort because of their long generation time. Thus, new approaches are needed to reach the envisaged breeding goals in a reasonable time frame. Genetic transformation potentially is useful, because specific genetic changes can be made. In the last few years successful examples of resistance breeding against viruses from nine different plant virus families have been reported, using the coat protein-mediated cross protection approach (Beachy et al., 1990). However, fruit trees have not been among these experiments due to the difficulties in transformation protocols and due to the lack of available genes. It is obvious that the major obstacle for the transformation of fruit tree species is the regeneration of transformed plantlets. Attempts to improve crop plants by genetic engineering techniques will always depend very strongly on the availability of reliable protocols for transformation, selection and regeneration (Laimer et al., 1989, 1990). A system was developed which allows the transfer of foreign genes into apricot cultivars. We report the transformation and regeneration of Prunus armeniaca plants with Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain LBA 4404 containing various binary plasmids, pBinGUSint, carrying the marker gene  -glucuronidase (GUS) and pBinPPVm, carrying the coat protein gene of Plum Pox Virus (PPV). The marker gene GUS was used for the optical evaluation of the efficiency of the transformation system.
The coat protein gene of PPV was used to introduce the coat protein mediated resistance against one of the most important pathogens of stone fruit trees in Europe and the whole Mediterranean area.
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