Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation of ZmDEF1 into tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) cultivar C9-1

Abstract

Plant defensins are multifunctional proteins, and one of the important functions is the inhibition of α-amylase activity in insects. Based on this characteristic, many authors have studied and used plant defensins to protect crops against weevils in postharvest preservation. In this study, ZmDEF1 gene isolated from the local maize Mai Son (Son La) with a high resistance to maize weevils was used as a transgene in the experiment to create transgenic tobacco plants from the cultivar C91. Transferring the pBetaPhaso-ZmDEF1 into 60 leaf pieces of the C9-1 tobacco cultivar three times obtained 56 survival pieces, created 69 shoots, and 12 transgenic crops were transferred to nethouses, including 6 crops with normal growth and development, lush and stout expression. Testing the presence of the ZmDEF1 transgene in transgenic tobacco lines by PCR obtained 5/6 transgenic plants containing the ZmDEF1 transgene, and the transgenic efficiency reached 8.33%. This result is the basis for conducting transgenic experiments in maize plants to generate transgenic maize lines with high resistance to weevils.