Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Washington, D.C. » National Arboretum » Floral and Nursery Plants Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #190639
Title: FRIABLE AND COMPACT CALLUS OF LILIUM LONGIFLORUM CV. NELLIE WHITE

Author
item Kamo, Kathryn
item HAN, BONG HEE - RURAL DEV ADMIN,KOREA

Submitted to: HortScience
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/16/2008
Publication Date: 6/27/2008
Citation: Kamo, K. and Han, B.H. 2008. Biolistic-mediated transformation of Lilium longiflorum dv. Nellie White. HortScience. 43:1864-1869.

Interpretive Summary: A method for genetic engineering of Easter lilies is reported. We plan to use genetic engineering of lilies for developing lilies with resistance to various diseases with emphasis on nematode resistance. The Easter Lily Foundation has reported nematodes to be their main problem when growing lilies in the field. This manuscript shows that different types of cells can be manipulated to develop in culture from the bulb scales of Easter lilies. The type of cells grew differently and differed in their capacity to be genetically engineered.

Technical Abstract: Two types of callus, a fast-growing friable callus and a slow-growing compact callus, were initiated from bulb scales of Lilium longiflorum cv. Nellie White. Sucrose affected the induction of friable callus. Friable callus was initiated from bulb scales cultured on Murashige and Skoog’s basal salts medium with 9 µM dicamba and 9% sucrose and grew 5X faster than compact callus. Friable callus formed numerous somatic embryo-like structures when cultured on Murashige and Skoog’s basal salts medium with 1% activated charcoal, but only a few embryo-like structures germinated to form plants with roots. Transformation was never achieved using biolistics on friable callus with the bar-uidA fusion gene under control of the CaMV 35S promoter or the nptII and uidA genes each under control of the CaMV 35S promoter. Plants regenerated from compact callus were phenotypically normal when grown to flowering, and regeneration appeared to be by organogenesis. Putatively transformed plants were selected from compact callus using the bar-uidA fusion gene under control of the CaMV 35S promoter. Compact callus was demonstrated to be better for future transformation experiments than friable callus.