Inheritance and expression of introduced DNA in transgenic onion plants (Allium cepa)

Summary Transgenic onion plants (Allium cepa) containing the Cauliflower mosaic virus 35s promoter (CaMV35s) and gfp gene construct encoding the visual green fluorescent reporter protein from pBINm gfp ER and the CaMV35s‐bar gene construct encoding resistance to the herbicide phosphinothricin from pCAMBlA3301 were produced by Agrobacterium‐mediated transformation. These plants weregrown to maturity and selfed in order to determine the expression and inheritance of the transgenes. CaMV35s regulation in onion, as observed by GFP expression, was essentially constitutive, and profiles of regulation were typical of those observed in dicotyledonous plants. Inhibition of CaMV35s regulated gene expression was only observed in one transformant. Both the expression of GFP and tolerance to phosphinothricin appeared to be inherited in a Mendelian fashion. Levels of expression in F1 offspring varied, presumably due to environmental and genetic factors. However, it appeared that copy number did strongly influence GFP protein production and expression. In the majority of plants there were no obvious detrimental phenotypic effects caused by the transgene, the integration event, or Somaclonal variation due to the need to perform tissue culture.