Qulsum, U: Genetic Transformation of Potato

Iron deficiency is the most wide spread nutritional problem in the world. For increasing the iron contents in four potato cultivars, in vitro leaf derived calli were transformed with Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain LBA4404 bearing Ti based binary pCAMBIA2301 plasmid containing selectable marker neomycin phosphotransferase (nptII) and ferritin gene. Maximum kanamycin resistant and ferriitn positive calli with the highest transformation frequency were obtained from Japanese Red by using 50 mg/l kanamycin, 50 mg/l cefotaxime, the bacterial suspension (OD=1.00 at 600 nm), 70 seconds incubation period, 24 h co-cultivation period in the presence of acetosyringone (25 mg/l). Putative transgenic plants were regenerated from the infected calli in medium containing MS + 3.0 mg/l BA + 0.1 mg/l NAA + 50 mg/l kanamycin + 50 mg/l cefotaxime. Kanamycin resistant plants were analysed with PCR and RT-PCR for the detection of ferritin gene and its transcript which reveal that ferritin genes were integrated into the plant genome.