Create citrus varieties resistant or tolerant to Huanglongbing through transgenic and nontransgenic approaches

Create citrus varieties resistant or tolerant to Huanglongbing through transgenic and nontransgenic approaches

Report Date: 11/04/2017
Project: 15-020   Year: 2017
Category: Horticultural & Management
Author: Zhonglin Mou
Sponsor: Citrus Research and Development Foundation

The project has three objectives: (1) Obtain mature tissues of the best transgenic lines. (2) Determine whether transgenics prevent psyllids from being infected. (3) Continue testing generations of vegetative propagation from the best transgenic lines. The following work has been conducted in this quarter: (1) Several propagations were made for the Swingle and Carrizo lines accumulating high levels of the transgenic protein. We noticed the Carrizo line that accumulates the highest level of the transgenic protein does not grow well, indicating that two much of the transgenic protein affects citrus growth and development. This provides a threshold for the transgenic protein. (2) The HLB-tolerant transgenic lines were further propagated. (3) Four TAIL-PCR experiments have been conducted with both right and left T-DNA border sequences to clone the gene suppressing psyllid reproduction on citrus plants. Unfortunately, not dominant PCR bands were obtained. The presence of the T-DNA insertion was confirmed using the kanamycin gene primers. We are determining the truncation sites of the T-DNA insertion and will clone the insertion site. (4) Cage experiment for replicates of the transgenic lines with low numbers of psyllid progenies is ongoing. More replicates will be generated.


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