MC-Transaction on Biotechnology, 2012, vol. 4, No. 1, e3
Using Ipomoea aquatica Forsk as a model plant to establish the expression system of foreign proteins
Wei-Chen Lai, Jyun-Fu Lyu, Ju-Pi Chang, Hung-Yun Liu, Chih-Ming Chiang*
Department Biotechnology, School of Health Technology, Ming-Chuan University, (Taoyuan, Taiwan, R.O.C.)
Corresponding author: Chih-Ming Chiang [cmchiang@mail.mcu.edu.tw ]
Received 23 May 2012/Revised 18 June 2012/Accepted 26 June 2012/Online published 27 June 2012
Abstract
The water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica Forsk) has the following advantages for its use in transgenesis: ie., resistance to hurricane, flooding, high temperature, diseases, pests, and only need a small space for its growth. Here, we established an induction and regeneration system for the Ipomoea aquatica Forsk callus. It can be further used to transform aquatic plants into transgenic proteins expression system in future. Because there are a lot of advantages, such as low cost, easiness of storage and transportation, the callus are produced from Ipomoea aquatica Forsk young stems and transformed by an Agrobactetium containing the expression vector pCAMBIA1303. Since the vector carried hygromycin and GUS (β-glucuronidase) genes in the T-DNA, selection of cultures were conducted using hygromycin and cefotaxime. Stable clones containing integration and expression of the transgenes were confirmed by both polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and GUS assay. The transformation efficiency is about 5.3%. To our knowledge, this is the first report of Agrobacterium-mediated transgenesis in a water spinach. These results indicate that the Ipomoea aquatica Forsk is an ideal system for the expression of foreign proteins.
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