U.S.-Italy Cooperative Research: Stable Transformation of Leguminous Plants

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This award will support collaborative research between Dr. Paul F. Lurquin of Washington State University and Drs. Filippone and Penza of the University of Naples, Italy. The objective of the project is to optimize gene transfer frequencies in a variety of leguminous plants and to explore techniques for the production of stably and homogeneously transformed plants from chimeric ones. Leguminous plants are notoriously refractory to genetic engineering. Failure to produce transgenic legumes is generally attributed to the fact that fertile plants cannot be regenerated from transformed callus cells growing in vitro. The investigators have developed a transformation procedure that does not require a tissue culture step and allows recovery of large proportions of plantlets chimeric for a transgene. This procedure hinges on the cocultivation of isolated mature embryos with Agrobacterium tumefaciens followed by plantlet development on nonselective medium. Specific staining indicated that large number of such plantlets contain a variety of tissues expressing the transgene. The two laboratories are essentially complementary, the Italian laboratory having a strong plant tissue culture and cytogenetic component, while the US laboratory is well versed in molecular and microbial techniques. Three graduate students are currently working on the project at Washington State University. The results of this collaboration will eventually improve the quality of pea, lentil, and chickpea plants grown in the US; the technology will be transferred to developing countries where cowpea and chickpea are grown on a large scale (the Middle East and Africa), thanks to the close links that exist between the Italian laboratory and IITA and ICARDA. //