The development of a cisgenic apple plant

Area of Science:

• Plant Biotechnology
• Agricultural Science
• Genetics

Background:

• Cisgenesis aims to develop genetically modified (GM) crops with reduced environmental concerns and increased consumer acceptance.
• Unlike traditional GM approaches, cisgenesis utilizes genes from sexually compatible organisms and avoids foreign selectable markers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To generate a cisgenic apple plant expressing an endogenous scab resistance gene.
• To demonstrate the feasibility of creating cisgenic crops without foreign DNA integration.

Main Methods:

• Agrobacterium-mediated transformation was employed to introduce the HcrVf2 gene into apple cultivar Gala.
• A selection system and chemically inducible recombination machinery were used to eliminate foreign DNA.
• Generated cisgenic lines were analyzed for gene insertion and expression.

Main Results:

• A cisgenic apple plant (cv. Gala) carrying the endogenous scab resistance gene HcrVf2 was successfully generated.
• The resulting plants expressed the HcrVf2 gene and showed no foreign DNA.
• Three cisgenic lines with single T-DNA insertions were selected for further study.

Conclusions:

• This study reports the first successful generation of a true cisgenic apple plant.
• Cisgenesis provides a promising strategy for developing safer and more acceptable GM crops.