Strain and cultivar specificity in the Agrobacterium-soybean interaction

The response of Glycine max., G. soja and G. canescens genotypes to inoculation with different Agrobacterium strains was assessed. Percent visual tumor formation and tumor size varied widely among species and genotypes. Susceptible genotypes displayed a heightened response to nopaline strains of A. tumefaciens, relative to octopine, agropine, and A. rhizogenes strains. A nopaline strain engineered to contain a chimeric neomycin phosphotransferase II gene conferred kanamycin resistance to soybean tissue at kanamycine levels as high as 300 μg/ml.