EXPRESSION OF BEAN STORAGE PROTEIN MINIGENE IN TOBACCO SEEDS - INTRONS ARE NOT REQUIRED FOR SEED SPECIFIC EXPRESSION

A native and mini (intronless) phaseolin gene were inserted into a mutant derivative of Agrobacterium tumefaciens plasmid pTi15955, in which the oncogenic tms2 and tmr loci were deleted. This pTi vector is referred to as a rooty-shooty mutant, pTiRS2014. The vector pTiRS2014 was used for the transfer and integration of phaseolin genes into the genome of tobacco followed by the regeneration of phenotypically normal tobacco plants. The presence of phaseolin polypeptides in R1 and R2 seeds was confirmed by immunological methods. These results demonstrate that native and mini-phaseolin genes are integrated stably into the respective tobacco plant lines and that the absence of the phaseolin introns did not affect its developmental expression.