Improvement of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation for tannin-producing sorghum

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) ranks as the fifth most widely planted cereal in the world and is used for food as well as a biomass plant for ethanol production. Use of the TX430 non-tannin sorghum variety has enhanced Agrobacterium-mediated sorghum transformation. These protocols could not be applied, however, to other tannin producing sorghum varieties such as the BTx623 model cultivar for sorghum with full genome information of sorghum. Here we report an improved protocol for Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation of tannin-producing sorghum variety BTx623. We successfully developed modification of root regeneration condition for generation of transgenic plant of BTx623. We inoculated immature embryos with Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain EHA105 harboring pMDC32-35S-GFP to generate transgenic plants. In the root regeneration step, we found that regeneration from transformed calli was affected by tannin. For root regeneration, shoots that appeared were not transferred to agar plate, but instead transferred to vermiculite in a plastic pod. Direct planting of regenerated shoots into vermiculite prevented the toxic effect of tannin. Root regeneration efficiency from calli emerged shoots in vermiculite was 78.57%. Presence of sGFP transgene in the genome of transgenic plants was confirmed by PCR and sGFP expression was confirmed in transgenic plants. This improved protocol of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation for tannin-producing sorghum BTx623 could be a useful tool for functional genomics using this plant.