Agrobacterium-Mediated Transfer of the GUS Gene into Pollen of Petunia

Transfer of the GUS gene into pollen has been studied in co-cultures of Agrobacterium and Petunia pollen. The Agrobacterium strain used contains a GUS gene between the two borders of the T-DNA. Uptake and integration of this GUS gene could be shown using two different restriction systems. First, by appropriate cleavage within the T-DNA the GUS gene could be isolated intact from Agrobacterium-treated pollen. Second, using enzymes with cleave the T-DNA only once, integration of this T-DNA into individual pollen genomes could be shown. The fragments obtained could not be obtained from Agrobacterium alone. The positive Southern blots were reprobed with vir probes, but all were negative. Also following plating, no Agrobacteria could be detected from our pollen DNA preparations. Therefore, the signals obtained were not due to contaminating bacteria. Due to a high endogenous GUS activity of Petunia pollen the expression of the transferred gene could not be studied. The data demonstrate the uptake and integration of T-DNA into pollen and are closing a gap in the line of evidence for the functioning of an indirect Agrobacterium — mediated gene transfer. Besides this, it should be stressed that only this indirect pollen system leads to success.