Genetic transformation in two potato cultivars with T-DNA from disarmed Agrobacterium

Derivatives of potato (Solanum tuberosum cv.'s 'Maris Bard' and 'Desiree') transformed with disarmed T-DNA from genetically engineered Agrobacterium tumefaciens strains were isolated. The transformed plants were recovered from shoot-forming tumours induced by infection of wounds with mixedcultures of shoot-inducing A. tumefaciens strains T37 and either Agrobacterium strain LBA1834(pRAL1834), (Hille et al. 1983) or LBA4404(pBIN6; pRAL4404), (Bevan 1984). Two small-scale feasibility experiments gave at least four 'Maris Bard' plants transformed with pRAL1834 T-DNA and two 'Desiree' plants with pBIN6 T-DNA. The transformed 'Maris Bard' plants were morphologically abnormal and highly aneuploid. This was probably an unfortunate side-effect of a tissue culture-step introduced to promote the efficiency of shoot regeneration. The transformed 'Desiree' plants, in contrast, were isolated without promoting additional shoot-growth. They were morphologically normal, contained 47 and the euploid 48 chromosomes per cell respectively and had improved growth on media containing kanamycin.