Agrobacterium rhizogenes and A. tumefaciens co-transformation to obtain grapevine hairy roots producing the coat protein of grapevine chrome mosaic nepovirus

Hairy root cultures of grapevine were obtained from plantlets co-inoculated by virulent Agrobacterium rhizogenes strains and disarmed A. tumefaciens strains harbouring the binary vectors pKHG4 and pKVHG 2+. These plasmids contain the nptII, hpt and gus genes and differ for the presence of the gene encoding for the grapevine chrome mosaic virus coat protein. For the cultivar ‘Gravesac’, 72% of the excised root tips initiated hairy root cultures on growth regulator-free media. According to the nature of the strains used in co-inoculation, co-transformation frequencies of the hairy root clones ranged from 4 to 16%. Co-transformed roots showed resistance to kanamycin and hygromycin but responses varied from clone to clone. Fluorometric GUS expression and GCMV coat protein production showed a large variability among hairy root clones co-transformed by pKHVG2+. Though the presence of gus, nptII and GCMV coat protein genes was checked by polymerase chain reaction and Southern blotting, it was difficult to establish a clear relationship between expression of the different transgenes. The regeneration of plants was not achieved, but the possibility to graft in vitro transgenic roots to non transformed shoot systems could permit rapid testing of the resistance induced by nepovirus coat protein in roots of cultivars that are recalcitrant to A. tumefaciens-mediated transformation. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.