Biotech Updates

Scientists Prove Baby Boom Transcription Also Effective For Apples

January 26, 2022

Baby Boom (BBM), a gene that can promote plant regeneration, is known to enhance the efficiency of transgenic plant regeneration in some crop and herbaceous plants, and poplar trees. But a team of scientists decided to test it in transgenic apple trees while overcoming transformation barriers and were able to show that its overexpression can significantly improve transformation efficiency.

The scientists from New Zealand and China used Royal Gala apples and transformed them with CaMV35S-MdBBM1 construct under kanamycin selection. MdBBM1 is a gene identified to be BBM by scientists and is located on chromosome 11. The transgenic apples underwent tests that revealed the enhanced shoot regeneration from leaf explants on tissue culture media. Thin leaf selections also showed that they produced more cells which meant that ectopic-expression of MdBBM1 enhanced cell division. Lastly, the scientists were able to produce 3-8% transgenic plants per 100 leaf explants for five transgenic lines, and 20-30% for three transgenic lines. All these results show that BBM can overcome the transformation barrier in apple trees and possibly other tree species as well.

Read Horticulture Research to learn more about the study.


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