Plantain (<em>Musa</em> spp. cv. ‘Navolean’ AAB) transgenic plants from A<em>grobacterium tumefaciens-mediated</em> transformation of embryogenic cell suspensions

Abstract

The present work was carried out with the objective to obtain plantain transgenic plants of ‘Navolean’ (Musa AAB) cultivar and to evaluate them, under field conditions during the first crop cycle, for Black Sigatoka disease. Embryogenic cell suspensions obtained from scalp were used for the transformation by Agrobacterium tumefaciens. The bacterial strain EHA-105 was used with the binary plasmid pHGA-91, which contained a combination of genes that encode for the antifungal glucanase enzyme and the AP24 osmotin. Twenty putative transformed lines of the construct were obtained after two months of selection in the culture medium. The transgenic events were verified by means of PCR and Southern hybridisation. These confirmed the stable integration and expression of the transgenes in transgenic plants that were selected in field showing differences with non-transgenic plants used as control. Key words: genetic transformation, AP24, glucanase, Musa, Mycosphaerella fijiensis