Development of a Genetic Transformation Method for Seabuckthorn ( Hippophae rhamnoides L.)

Abstract

Seabuckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.) is a dioecious plant with berries containing high amounts of several bioactive compounds with nutritional and medicinal traits. It is also planted to control soil erosion. A genetic transformation procedure will facilitate studies of the control of plant development and interactions with symbionts and pathogens, and will provide a tool for plant breeding. Here, we present a particle bombardment method for transforming seabuckthorn. The early stages of induced adventitious shoots from roots were chosen as a novel target tissue for the transformation procedure. The root system was bombarded with gold particles coated with plasmid pRT99gus containing genes for plant kanamycin resistance and for β-glucuronidase expression , and shoots were regenerated under kanamycin selection. PCR analysis of the regenerated transformed lines confirmed the presence of a 603 bp gus (uidA) gene fragment and a 1.5 kb fragment from the 35S promoter in three shoots from independent transformation events.