Development of Herbicide Resistant Potato Lines; A Step Towards Transgenics in Turkey

Modern technologies of genetic transformation have enabled researchers to introduce any trait of economic importance in crops. The herbicide resistant crops were cultivated on an area of approximately 100 million hectares in 2015; mainly expressing EPSPS gene that encode resistance to non selective glyphosate. In order to introduce herbicide resistant trait in four potato cultivars (Lady Olympia, Agria, Desiree and Marabel), we first optimized an efficient, cost effective, reproducible, genotype independent and stable Agrobacterium mediated genetic transformation protocol in potato using leaf and internodal explants. Agrobacterium strain LBA4404 harboring recombinant binary vector pBin19 containing beta-glucuronidase uidA gene under the control of 35S promoter was used for this purpose. Besides that, the optimal concentration of Glyphosate was determined using leaf and internodal explants of cultivars in in vitro experiments. After developing an efficient transformation protocol, we infected explants cultivars with Agrobacterium strains LBA4404 harboring pCAMHE-EPSPS plasmid under the control of 35S promoter. Glyphosate was used at a concentration of 1.5mM for the selection of primary transformants. The primary transformants were further analyzed for the gene integration and expression analysis.The results revealed the proper integration and expression of introduced gene in putative transgenic plants obtained as a result of different transformation events. The transgenic potato lines are being screened against glyphosate applications in green house conditions. These transgenic lines are expected to serve as an excellent source of germplasm for an efficient potato breeding programme.