Genetic transformation of commercial breeding lines of alfalfa (Medicago sativa)

Bio-engineering technologies are now routinely used for the genetic improvement of many agricultural crops. However, breeding lines of Medicago sativa are not easily amenable to genetic transformation and therefore cannot benefit from the molecular tools that have been developed for genetic manipulations. This paper describes a strategy that has been developed to transfer DNA into commercially important breeding lines of winter-hardy alfalfa via Agrobacterium infection. Three highly regenerative genotypes have been selected from ca 1000 genotypes within 11 breeding lines. They have been used as basic material for an extensive genetic transformation trial. Combinations of genotypes (11.9, 8.8, 1.5) expression vectors (pGA482, pGA643, pBibKan) and bacterial strains (C58, A281, LBA4404) were tested for their ability to produce stable transgenic material. Putative transgenic plantlets were further screened by nptII-specific PCR amplification, Southern hybridization and recallusing assays. One genotype (1.5) gave only one transformant out of 432 individual trials. With the two other genotypes, efficiency of transformation (kanamycin-resistant calluses obtained/explant tested) ranged from 0 to 0.92 depending on the strain/vector combination used. Statistical interactions underline the possibility of obtaining good genotype-strain-vector combinations for alfalfa transformation. Predicted transformation probability indicates that with strain LBA4404 containing the vector pGA482 and genotype 11.9, transformation efficiency is above 60% and 10% or more of the calluses retain embryogenic potential. PCR amplification and Southern hybridization of randomly chosen regenerated plantlets demonstrated that all embryos developing on 50 μg ml-1 kanamycin had a stable genomic insertion of nptII. Sexual crosses with untransformed genotypes showed that segregation of the transgenic trait followed Mendelian heredity.