Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of the wild orchid Cattieya maxima Lindi

Univ. Sci. 23 (1): 89-107, 2018. doi: 10.11144/Javeriana.SC23-1.amto Bogotá original article Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of the wild orchid Cattleya maxima Lindl Cueva-Agila Augusta Y.1, *, Cella Rino2 Edited by Juan Carlos Salcedo-Reyes () 1. Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja, Loja, Ecuador. 2. Department of Biology and Biotechnology. University of Pavia, Via Ferrata 9, 27100, Pavia, Italy. * Received: 07-07-2017 Accepted: 01-03-2018 Published on line: 22-03-2018 Citation: Cueva-Agila AY, Cella R. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of the wild orchid Cattleya maxima Lindl, Universitas Scientiarum, 23 (1): 89-107, 2018. doi: 10.11144/Javeriana.SC23-1.amto Funding: UTPL and SENESCYT Electronic supplementary material: N.A. Abstract Protocorms are unique anatomical structures; they are akin to rhizoids and are formed by young orchid seedlings under physiological conditions. Explanted orchid tissues produce similar structures called protocorm-like bodies (PLBs) when exposed to appropriate in vitro growing conditions. Both the propagative nature of PLBs and the easiness by which they can be generated, make these structures an attractive alternative to seed-mediated production for growing large numbers of plants. To increase somatic embryogenesis and optimize the procedure, PLBs of Cattleya maxima were transformed using the Agrobacterium tumefaciens method. The T-DNA carried a Hygromycin-resistance gene, a visible marker (GFP5-GUSA) and a rice gene encoding the Somatic Embryogenesis Receptor Kinase, deemed to be important for somatic embryogenesis. Treated PLBs generated somatic embryos developing Hygromycin-resistant plantlets. The insertion of T-DNA was confirmed by PCR, and GFP expression was observed using a fluorescent stereomicroscope. Transformed Cattleya maxima PLBs were more efficient in forming somatic embryos (60 - 80 %) than untransformed controls (45 - 57 %), and this contrast was maximized in hormone-free, Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium (80 % of the transformed plants compared to 57 % of the untransformed ones). This finding supports the notion that SERK plays an important role in Orchid embryogenesis. Keywords: Protocorm-Like-Bodies; Transformation; Orchids; pCAMBIA; SERK; Agrobacterium tumefaciens Introduction The Orchidaceae is the largest vascular plant family in Ecuador, with nearly 4 000 species, and is of economic importance for this country due to its significant share in the international ornamental plant market (Simpson 2006). Universitas Scientiarum, Journal of the Faculty of Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License 90 Transformation of Cattleya maxima Cattleya is one of the most noted genera of the family, for its popularity and richness of colors (Krapiec 2003). One native representative species of the genus is Cattleya maxima (Dodson & Escobar 2005). Unfortunately, an intense specimen harvest, linked to habitat loss and deforestation threatens most native and endemic Ecuadorian orchid species (Dodson 2005). To counter this situation, ex situ clonal propagation methodologies for orchids are being developed (Cuoco & Cronan 2009). For instance, several techniques of clonal propagation have been developed for the genus Cattleya (reviewed by Arditti 2008; Krapiec 2003). Transgenesis is a powerful tool to aid the success of clonal propagation of orchids. Pioneering work in the early eighties (Fraley et al. 1983) paved the way for the production of transgenic plants engineered for several purposes (Deo et al. 2010). Currently, successful orchid transformation protocols rely on an efficient regeneration procedure based on Somatic Embryogenesis (SE) and on culture conditions favoring the formation of the specific structures called Protocorm-Like-Bodies (PLBs), as a prerequisite for optimal clonal propagation (Young et al 2000, Texeira et al 2006, Cueva et al 2014). During SE, differential expression of several genes takes place (Chugh & Paramjit 2002). However, only few of the differentially expressed genes are considered embryogenesis-specific (Ikeda et al. 2003). The Somatic Embryogenesis Receptor-like Kinase (SERK) gene, is one of such genes expressed during SE as well as in zygotic embryogenesis. SERK expression is characteristic of embryo-forming masses in induced carrot suspension cultures (Schmidt et al. 1997). Homologues of carrot SERK have been described in different species and are encoded by small gene families of 1-6 members (described in Cueva et al 2012). In rice Oryza sativa, two SERK genes have been identified, OsSERK1 and OsSERK2 (Ito et al. 2005). Presumably, by modulating the expression of genes such as SERK during SE, the success of clonal propagation procedures could be improved. However, for orchids, and particularly for those of the genus Cattleya, reaching to this point first requires the development of the appropriate transgenesis toolkit. Transgenic orchid production has been reported only for a few orchid genera (Men et al. 2003). Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated and microprojectile particle bombardment (biolistic protocol) have been the most successfully used methods for orchid transgenesis (Deo et al. 2010, Texeira da Silva et al. 2011). The biolistic method is thus far the most employed approach for orchid transformation, as in the genera Dendrobium (Men et al. 2003, Kuehnle & Sugii 1992, Chia et al. 1994, Yu et al. 1999, Tee et al. 2003), Phalaenopsis, Cymbidium (Yang et al. 1999), Cattleya, Brassia, and Doritaenopsis (Knapp et al. 2000). The Agrobacterium-mediated method Universitas Scientiarum Vol. 23 (1): 89-107 http://ciencias.javeriana.edu.co/investigacion/universitas-scientiarum 91 Cueva-Agila et al. has been used for Dendrobium (Wasana et al. 2015, Men et al. 2003, Yu et al. 2001), Phalaenopsis (Belarmino & Mii 2000, Chai et al. 2002, Mishiba et al. 2005, Sjahril & Mii 2006), Cymbidium (Chen & Chang 2002, Chin et al. 2007), Oncidium (Liau et al. 2003), Vanda (Pavallekoodi et al. 2014), Erycina (Lee et al. 2015), and Cattleya (Zhang et al. 2010). Compared to the biolistic method, Agrobacterium-mediated transformation offers the following advantages: delivery of a lower transgene copy number, lower level of transgene rearrangement, transfer of relatively large segments of DNA, and no special equipment requirements (Hei et al. 1994, Cheng et al. 1997). The Agrobacterium method proved to be efficient for most dicotyledonous species, but it appears to be less suited for monocots. The genus Cattleya was found to be recalcitrant to Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Only one successful application of the method has been reported for a commercial Cattleya variety (CM2450) (Zhang et al. 2010). Selection of transformants relies on the use of the two types of markers: reporter genes and selectable markers. The most commonly used reporter genes for orchid transformatio (...truncated)