Bialaphos selection of stable transformants from maize cell culture

Stable transformed Black Mexican Sweet (BMS) maize callus was recovered from suspension culture cells bombarded with plasmid DNA that conferred resistance to the herbicide bialaphos. Suspension culture cells were bombarded with a mixture of two plasmids. One plasmid contained a selectable marker gene, bar, which encoded phosphinothricin acetyl transferase (PAT), and the other plasmid encoded a screenable marker for β-glucuronidase (GUS). Bombarded cells were selected on medium containing the herbicide bialaphos, which is cleaved in plant cells to yield phosphinothricin (PPT), an inhibitor of glutamine synthetase. The bialaphos-resistant callus contained the bar gene and expressed PAT as assayed by PPT inactivation. Transformants that expressed high levels of PAT grew more rapidly on increasing concentrations of bialaphos than transformants expressing low levels of PAT. Fifty percent of the bialaphos-resistant transformants tested (8 of 16) expressed the nonselected gene encoding GUS.