캘러스 유도에 의한 수박 형질전환

Abstract

The genetic transformation of watermelon by Agrobacterium has been known very difficult and a few successful cases have been reported by obtaining the direct shoot formation. However, since this direct shoot formation is not guaranteed the stable transformation, the stable transformation with reproducibility is required by a different approach such as a callus induced manner. The best conditions for inducing the callus from cotyledon and root explants of watermelon were 2 mg/L zeatin + 0.1 mg/L IAA and 2 mg/L BA + 0.1 mg/L 2,4-D, respectively. The GFP expression in the callus was identified and monitored through fluorescent microscopy after transformation with pmGFP5-ER vector. Paromomycin rather than kanamycin was used for selecting the nptII gene expression because it was more effective to select the watermelon explants. Four different callus types were observed and the solid green callus showed stronger GFP expression. The highest frequency of GFP expression in the callus developed from cotyledon was 9.0% (WM8 inbred line), while the highest frequency from root was 8.3% (WM6 inbred line). The WMV-CP was transformed using the method of GFP transformation and the genetic transformation of WMV-CP was confirmed by PCR and Southern blot analysis. Here we present a system for callus induction of watermelon explant and the callus induced method would facilitate the establishment of stable watermelon transformation.