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: 04/15/2017
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) Analyzed transgene product (protein) levels in 30 independent rootstock transgenic lines and identified three lines accumulating high levels of the transgene product, one Swingle line and two Carrizo lines. These three rootstock lines will be propagated in the coming quarter. (2) After inoculation of the HLB-tolerant transgenic lines with the flowering promoting gene FT3, all three lines have flowered. We are propagating these lines for field trials. (3) One more cage experiment testing psyllid reproduction on transgenic plants was performed. Results showed that only one line consistently prevents reproduction of psyllids, suggesting a T-DNA insertion mutation in this line. We will clone the citrus gene required for psyllid reproduction in the coming quarter. (4) More replicates were made for transgenic lines with low numbers of progenies and these progeny plants will be tested in the coming quarter.


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