Lamppa G, Nagy F, Chua N H
Nature. 1985;316(6030):750-2. doi: 10.1038/316750a0.
Many of our most important crop plants are monocotyledons, including wheat, corn, rice and barley. No routine transformation system for monocotyledons has been reported, such as the Ti-mediated gene transfer system for dicotyledons facilitated by Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Indirect evidence suggests that Ti-plasmid DNA is transferred into and expressed in A. tumefaciens-infected wound tissues of plants from Liliaceae and Amaryllidaceae, but these observations have not been extended to monocotyledons of greatest agricultural importance. Regeneration of monocotyledons is usually blocked at the callus-stage, further complicating the possibility of exploring the regulated expression of their genes, and thus preventing identification of the regulatory domains of monocotyledonous genes in a homologous nuclear background. To circumvent these difficulties, we investigated whether monocotyledonous genes can be expressed and correctly regulated in dicotyledons. We have introduced a wheat gene (whAB1.6) encoding the major chlorophyll a/b binding protein (Cab) of the light-harvesting complex into the genomes of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum SR1) and petunia (Petunia hybrida) via a Ti-DNA-mediated gene transfer system which allows the transformed cells to regenerate into whole plants. Here we report for the first time the light-regulated and organ-specific expression of a monocotyledonous gene in transgenic dicotyledonous plants.
我们许多最重要的农作物都是单子叶植物，包括小麦、玉米、水稻和大麦。目前尚未报道过针对单子叶植物的常规转化系统，比如由根癌农杆菌介导的用于双子叶植物的Ti质粒介导基因转移系统。间接证据表明，Ti质粒DNA可转移至百合科和石蒜科植物被根癌农杆菌感染的伤口组织中并在其中表达，但这些观察结果尚未扩展到具有最大农业重要性的单子叶植物。单子叶植物的再生通常在愈伤组织阶段受阻，这进一步增加了探索其基因调控表达的难度，从而阻碍了在同源核背景下鉴定单子叶植物基因的调控结构域。为了克服这些困难，我们研究了单子叶植物基因是否能在双子叶植物中表达并得到正确调控。我们通过Ti-DNA介导的基因转移系统，将一个编码光捕获复合体主要叶绿素a/b结合蛋白（Cab）的小麦基因（whAB1.6）导入烟草（烟草品种SR1）和矮牵牛（矮牵牛杂交种）的基因组中，该系统能使转化细胞再生为完整植株。在此，我们首次报道了单子叶植物基因在转基因双子叶植物中的光调控和器官特异性表达。
