TRANSFERRING CUCUMBER MOSAIC VIRUS-WHITE LEAF STRAIN COAT PROTEIN GENE INTO CUCUMIS-MELO L AND EVALUATING TRANSGENIC PLANTS FOR PROTECTION AGAINST INFECTIONS

A single regeneration procedure using cotyledon explants effectively regenerated five commercially grown muskmelon cultivars. This regeneration scheme was used to facilitate gene transfers using either Agrobacterium tumefaciens (using 'Burpee Hybrid' and 'Hales Best Jumbo') or microprojectile bombardment (using 'Topmark') methods. In both cases, the transferred genes were from the T-DNA region of the binary vector plasmid pGA482GG/cp cucumber mosaic virus-white leaf strain (CMV-WL), which contains genes that encode neomycin phosphotransferase II (NPT H), beta-glucuronidase (GUS), and the CMV-WL coat protein (CP). Explants treated with pFA482GG/cpCMV-WL regenerated shoots on Murashige and Skoog medium containing 4.4 M mu 6-benzylaminopurine (BA), kanamycin (Km) at 150 mg.liter(-1) and carbenicillin (Cb) at 500 m. liter(-1) Our comparison of A. tumefaciens- and microprojectile-mediated gene transfer procedures shows that both methods effectively produce nearly the same percentage of transgenic plants. R(0) plants were first tested for GUS or NPT II expression, then the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and other tests were used to verify the transfer of the NPT II, GUS, and CMV-WL CP genes. This analysis showed that plants transformed by A. tumefaciens contained all three genes, although co transferring the genes into bombarded plants was not always successful. R(1) plants were challenge inoculated with CMV-FNY, a destructive strain of CMV found in New York. Resistance levels-varied according to the different transformed genotypes. Somaclonal variation was observed in a significant number of R(0) transgenic plants. Plow cytometry analysis of leaf tissue revealed that a significant number of transgenic plants were tetraploid or mixoploid, whereas the commercial nontransformed cultivars were diploid. In a study of young, germinated cotyledons, however, a mixture of diploid, tetraploid, and octoploid cells were found at the shoot regeneration sites.