Biotech Updates

Fusion Gene Transformation in Insect Resistant/Herbicide Tolerant Tobacco

July 27, 2012

The use of linker peptides for transformation of multiple genes has been shown to be effective in previous studies involving transgenic crops. He Sun from Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) and colleagues used 2A and LP4/2A as linker peptides to make multi-protein vectors to express insect resistance protein (Bt Cry1Ah) and glyphosate tolerance protein (mG2-EPSPS).

The team constructed four fusion vectors (pHAG, pHLAG, pGAH and pGLAH) and transformed into tobacco through Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation. A total of 529 transformants were obtained. Through molecular detection and bioassay detection, they found that the transgenic tobaccos exhibited good insect resistance and herbicide tolerance. The two genes in the fusion vector were also found to be expressed simultaneously. The expression level of the two genes linked by LP4/2A was higher than those linked by 2A and was not significantly different from the single vector.

The research article is available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/a2k20v61l7301142/.