Scientists develop marker-free GM hexaploid wheat

Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences reported the first successful generation of marker-free transgenic hexaploid wheat using commercial Chinese wheat varieties.

Transgenic wheat plants were generated using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, and were confirmed using Quickstix strips, histochemical staining, PCR analysis, and Southern blotting. The average co-integration frequency of the gus (reporter gene) and bar (selectable marker) genes present in the two T-DNA regions was 49 percent. Furthermore, the researchers found that the efficiency of generating marker-free plants was linked to the number of bar gene copies integrated in the genome. The bar gene was silenced in some of the transgenic plants, which is due to the DNA methylation in the 35S promoter of the bar gene regulatory region.

Read the research article in Plant Biotechnology Journal.