Cell wall regenerating protoplasts from soybean cells kept in suspension culture were cocultivated with bacteria which were derived from the nopaline strain C58 of Agrobacterium tumefaciens. When the bacteria carried an oncogenic Ti-plasmid, about 5% of the surviving protoplasts were able to form calli on hormone-free agar in contrast to controls, where bacteria without Ti-plasmid were applied, and where no calli were formed. After isolation of DNA from hormone-independently growing cells further evidence for transformation was obtained by hybridization to Ti-plasmid specific RNA and by rescue of a segment with a bacterial resistance gene which had been inserted before into the T-DNA. Transfer of T-DNA harboring a neomycin-resistance gene activated by the nos-promoter resulted in calli growing on kanamycin. Verification of segments located at the left and the right part of the T-DNA indicated the presence of its entire length in transformed soybean cells. Expression of T-DNA genes was measured by the assay of nopaline-synthase. Cells cultured on agar had a much higher level of nopaline-synthase than fast growing cells in suspension culture. Transferring them to agar or treatment with azacytidine strongly increased synthesis of nopaline-synthase indicating a reversible repression presumably via a methylation mechanism.

No abstract

Plasmids with the replication origin of bacteriophage fd, the pfd-plasmids, were investigated for compatibility in E. coli cells expressing fd gene 2-protein. This was measured by transformation of Ca-treated cells with and without a residing pfd-plasmid. When the two plasmids contained the complete intergenic region of bacteriophage fd, they were fully compatible in contrast to the situation in which at least one plasmid had a shortened origin for viral strand replication. This incompatibility effect was partially compensated for by a pfd-plasmid with a short origin and with the fd gene 2. The fd replication origin on a colEl plasmid did not affect compatibility in polA+ cells indicating its idling in the presence of the colEl origin. It can be concluded that a short replication origin requires high amounts of gene 2-protein in contrast to the long origin. Accumulation of replication intermediates severely interferes with host cell metabolism.