A non-canonical transferred DNA insertion at the BRI1 locus in Arabidopsis thaliana

Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is widely used in transgenic plant engineering and has been proven to be a powerful tool for insertional mutagenesis of the plant genome. The transferred DNA (T-DNA) from Agrobacterium is integrated into the plant genome through illegitimate recombination between the T-DNA and the plant DNA. Contrasting to the canonical insertion, here we report on a locus showing a complex mutation associated with T-DNA insertion at the BRI1 gene in Arabidopsis thaliana. We obtained a mutant line, named salade for its phenotype of dwarf stature and proliferating rosette. Molecular characterization of this mutant revealed that in addition to T-DNA a non-T-DNA-localized transposon from bacteria was inserted in the Arabidopsis genome and that a region of more than 11.5 kb of the Arabidopsis genome was deleted at the insertion site. The deleted region contains the brassinosteroid receptor gene BRI1 and the transcription factor gene WRKY13. Our finding reveals non-canonical T-DNA insertion, implicating horizontal gene transfer and cautioning the use of T-DNA as mutagen in transgenic research.