Rye (Secale cereale L.)

Rye (Secale cereale L.) is one of the most recalcitrant plant species for tissue culture and genetic transformation. Embryogenic rye callus loses its ability to regenerate plants quickly in response to high density of Agrobacterium and other stressors. The cocultivation of Agrobacterium and rye immature embryos in liquid medium facilitated washing of the cultures to avoid Agrobacterium overgrowth and allowed a high throughput. More than 40 independent transgenic plants were regenerated with one to four Southern-positive, independent events from 100 inoculated immature embryos. Agrobacterium strain AGL0 supported stable integration of a constitutive nptII selectable marker expression cassette into the genome of rye inbred line L22, as indicated by regeneration of plantlets on paromomycin-containing culture medium, Southern blot, Western blot, and the analysis of T-DNA::plant DNA boundary sequences. Transgenic plants were phenotypically normal and fully fertile, which might be a consequence of the short time in tissue culture.