title: Banana (Musa sp.).
abstract: Cultivated bananas are vegetatively propagating herbs, which are difficult to breed because of widespread male and female sterility. As a complementary gene transfer method in banana, the described Agrobacterium protocol relies on highly regenerable embryogenic cell cultures. Embryogenic cells are infected and co-cultivated in the presence of acetosyringone with Agrobacterium tumefaciens harboring a binary plasmid vector to obtain a mixed population of transformed and untransformed plant cells. Transformed plant cells are promoted to grow for 2 to 3 mo on a cell colony induction medium containing the antibiotics geneticin or hygromycin as selective agents, while agrobacteria are counterselected by timentin. The whole procedure, including plant regeneration, takes approx 6 mo and results in an average frequency of 25 to 50 independent transgenic plants per plate, which equals 50 mg of embryogenic cells. This method has been applied to a wide range of cultivars and to generate large populations of transgenic colonies and plants for tagging genes and promoters in banana.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Fruticultura Tropical, Instituto Canario de Investigaciones Agrarias, Apartado 60, 38200 La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain.
authors.forename: Juan B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Pérez Hernández
authors.forename: Serge
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Remy
authors.forename: Rony
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Swennen
authors.forename: László
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sági
mesh_terms: D016960:Agrobacterium tumefaciens / Q000166:cytology / Q000235:genetics*; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques; D018920:Coculture Techniques; D003470:Culture Media; D018014:Gene Transfer Techniques; D005819:Genetic Markers; D005822:Genetic Vectors; D028521:Musa / Q000166:cytology / Q000196:embryology / Q000235:genetics*; D012639:Seeds / Q000166:cytology / Q000235:genetics; D012987:Soil; D014170:Transformation, Genetic
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media; D005819:Genetic Markers; D012987:Soil