Molecular analysis of the genome of transgenic rice (Oryza sativa L.) plants produced via particle bombardment or intact cell electroporation

In the present work we utilised some of the most discriminative molecular tools, such as RAPD, AFLP, AFRP and RAMP, to analyse the genome of independently derived transgenic plants from three elite Italian cultivars (cv. Lido, Carnaroli and Thaibonnet) and found that two methods for direct gene transfer, namely particle bombardment and intact cell electroporation (the latter being a procedure set up in this work), result in transgenic rice (Oryza sativa L.) plants that exhibit negligible genomic changes. This is in contrast with recently published results showing relevant changes in the DNA of transgenic rice plants generated through protoplasts electroporation and of transgenic poplar plants engineered through Agrobacterium tumefaciens infection. Implications of these findings are discussed in the context of selecting appropriate gene transfer methodologies to produce transgenic plants expressing genes of interest while retaining their genomic integrity and, thus, their superior agronomic and/or industrial traits.