Production of Herbicide-Resistant Medicinal Plant Salvia miltiorrhiza Transformed with the Bar Gene

Yu Liu, Shi Xin Yang, Yan Cheng, Dong Qing Liu, Yong Zhang, Ke Jun Deng, Xue Lian Zheng

In this study, we successfully performed Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation of Salvia miltiorrhiza and produced herbicide-resistant transformants. Leaf discs of S. miltiorrhiza were infected with Agrobacterium tumefaciens EHA105 harboring pCAMBIA 3301. The pCAMBIA 3301 includes an intron-containing gus reporter and a bar selection marker. To increase stable transformation efficiency, a two-step selection was employed which consists of herbicide resistance and gus expression. Here, we put more attention to the screening step of herbicide resistance. The current study provides an efficient screening system for the transformed plant of S. miltiorrhiza harboring bar gene. To determine the most suitable phosphinothricin concentration for plant selection, non-transformed leaf discs were grown on selection media containing six different phosphinothricin concentrations (0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, and 1.0 mg/l). Based on the above results of non-transformed calluses, the sensitivity of phosphinothricin (0, 0.4, 0.8, 1.2, 1.6 mg/l) was tested in the screening of transgenic S. miltiorrhiza. We identified that 0.6 mg/l phosphinothricin should be suitable for selecting putatively transformed callus because non-transformed callus growth was effectively inhibited under this concentrations. When sprayed with Basta, the transgenic S. miltiorrhiza plants were tolerant to the herbicide. Hence, we report successful transformation of the bar gene conferring herbicide resistance to S. miltiorrhiza.