10.5010/JPB.2012.39.2.099

Abstract

Methyl jasmonate is a plant volatile that acts as an important cellular regulator mediating diverse developmental processes and defense responses. Transgenic Chinese cabbage (Brassica campestris L. ssp. Pekinensis) plants were successfully obtained from cotyledonary explants inoculated with Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which harbored a binary vector plasmid with jasmonic acid carboxyl methyltransferase (JMT) gene for the formation of methyl jasmonate from jasmonic acid. Through initial selection of regenerated explants by culturing on a mannose and lilacillin containing MS medium, multiple shoots were obtained after 2 months of culture. For a complementary step of selection, putative transgenic shoots were transferred to MS medium supplemented with 6 g/L mannose and 200 mg/L lilacillin. After culture and selection on MS medium a number of mannose resistant plantlets were regenerated. Polymerase chain reaction, Southern and Northern blot analysis were used to identify and characterize the transgenic plants with the integrated JMT gene. Over 10 transgenic plants have been established in soil and flowered in the greenhouse. T1 progeny of 10 transgenic Chinese cabbage inbred lines were inoculated with Erwinia carotovora. Expression of the JMT peptide in transgenic Chinese cabbage plants provides high levels of field resistance against Erwinia carotovora, causal agent of the agronomically important bacterial disease of Chinese cabbage.