Agrobacterium tumefaciens AKE10-mediated transformation of an Asian pea pear, Pyrus betulaefolia Bunge: host specificity of bacterial strains

The Asian pea pear, Pyrus betulaefolia Bunge, is tolerant to several disorders in the fruit bodies caused by high humidity and dryness and is hence widely used as a rootstock for many pear plants suitable for food sources. We have now successfully transformed P. betulaefolia Bunge by an Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer system. Among several wild-type A. tumefaciens strains examined, only AKE10 induced shoot-forming tumors at a high frequency on excised cotyledons of P. betulaefolia Bunge cultured on phytohormone-free medium. Both the nptII (kanamycin resistance) and GUS (#-glucuronidase) genes were introduced into the cotyledons by infection with AKE10 harboring a binary vector, and regenerated plants were obtained. Southern hybridization and polymerase chain reaction analyses and histochemical GUS assay indicated that morphologically normal transformed plants faithfully contained genes from the vector but not from wild-type oncogenic T-DNA. However, morphologically abnormal plants additionally possessed the 6b gene (AK-6b) of AKE10. These results show that non-disarmed A. tumefaciens is adequate to transfer genes to the Asian pea pear, P. betulaefolia Bunge.