Transformed potato (Solanum tuberosum) plants were obtained from homozygous diploid potato by using a transformation procedure in combination with an adventitious shoot regeneration method. Leaf and stem explants were inoculated with an Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain which contained a binary vector (pVU 1011) carrying the neomycin phosphotransferase gene. Shoot regeneration most effectively on stem explants, occurred within six weeks directly from the explants without introducing a callus phase. A strong seasonal influence on transformation efficiencies was observed. Analysis of a number of randomly selected regenerated shoots for their ability to root and form shoots on kanamycin-containing medium shows that over 90% of the regenerated shoots obtained are transformed. In a number of shoots transformation was confirmed by a test for the presence and expression of the NPT-II gene.

Transgenic shoots were regenerated from eight diploid potato hairy root clones obtained by transformation with Agrobacterium rhizogenes harboring next to its wild-type Ri-plasmid a binary vector containing the neomycin phosphotransferase and the β-glucuronidase genes. The plants exhibited the typical hairy root phenotype. Of the plants isolated, 58% were tetraploid and 38% were diploid. Flowering and tuberization was much better in the diploid than in the tetraploid plants. Transgenic plants formed a significantly larger root system when grown on kanamycin-containing medium as compared to growth on kanamycin-free medium. Direct evidence for genetic transformation was obtained by opine, neomycin phosphotransferase and β-glucuronidase assays, and by molecular hybridization. Fourteen flowering diploid plants were reciprocally crossed with untransformed S. tuberosum plants, but only six were successful. Seedlings obtained from four crosses showed that all traits were transmitted to the offspring. Molecular analysis confirmed the presence of multiple integrations (copies) of both vector T-DNA and Ri-T-DNA. The genetic data, furthermore, suggest that the traits derived from Ri-T-DNA and binary vector T-DNA are linked, as no recombination between the different traits was observed.

We identified an open reading frame (ORF) which is located closely behind the gene encoding granule-bound starch synthase (GBSS) of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.). The ORF ends with a perfect 43 bp direct repeat, which carries the stop triplet precisely at the beginning of the second repeat. The deduced protein shows homology with all known isoforms of plant beta-1,3-glucanases and beta-1,3-1,4-glucanases. Although the DNA sequence is unique in potato and tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum L.), no expression of the gene was found in these species. Taken together with the unusual codon usage and length of the predicted protein, this sequence could be a pseudogene.

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