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Title: FIRST REPORT OF ADVENTITIOUS SHOOTS FROM INTACT SUGARBEET PLANTS AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

Author
item Saunders, Joseph
item Kuykendall, Larry
item Smigocki, Anna

Submitted to: American Society of Sugarbeet Technologists
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/1/2001
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Cercospora leafspot disease reduces yields of sugarbeets by about 20%. Bioengineering of transgenic plants to have novel resistance-conferring determinants from other sources is one promising approach to reducing crop losses due to such devastating diseases. Since only inefficient transformation protocols were available for sugarbeet, scientists have focused on improving sugarbeet transformation. This year an important step was made toward dramatically improving sugarbeet transformation and this is expected to dramatically advance progress in this area of research.

Technical Abstract: Simple and efficient genetic transformation in sugarbeet has long been unavailable because of the absence of a satisfactory technology for the direct (i.e., not involving callus) de novo formation of shoots from leaves (or parts thereof). However, of course, such a system has long been available for use with Rhizobium (formerly Agrobacterium) transformation of tobacco, for example. Labs have reported the formation of adventitious shoots from in vitro grown sugarbeet shoots and seedlings, or from leaf pieces and thin cell layers from these. Since these adventitious shoots presumable originated from pre-formed meristematic initials' induced during the prior in vitro culture of the donor shoots and seedlings, they have not been considered amenable for either direct selection or genetic transformation. Currently, we have obtained direct adventitious shoots in a one step procedure using leaf pieces of greenhouse-grown plant sugarbeet clone REL-1. Up to 83% of leaf pieces regenerated one or more shoots with single midvein pieces one-to-two cm long initially placed on semi-solid Murashige-Skoog media with 1 mg/L N6 -benzyladenine and then maintained at 23-24 degrees C for seven-to-twelve weeks in low light intensity light from overhead fluorescent lamps. This new discovery will likely provide for the simple and efficient regeneration that has long been needed for genetic transformation of sugarbeet.