The transformation of Artemisia annua L. plants as a first step in establishing the overproduction of the new antimalarial compound artemisinin
1995
Vergauwe, A. | Vandenberghe, D. | Cammaert, R. | Genetello, C. | Montagu, M. van | Eechout, E. van den (Gent Univ. (Belgium). Faculty of Pharmaceutica-l Sciences. Lab. of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology)
The old Chinese herb Artemisia annua L. (Compositae) produces the new very promising antimalarial coumpound artemisinin that is also active against the resistant Plasmodium falciparum strain. Since the production of this valuable drug is very low in the plants, an Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation procedure was established in order to overproduce it in the plant. Leaf, stem and root explants were infected with disarmed Agrobacterium tumefaciens strains and incubated on callus and shoot inducing medium. By using vancomycin for the decontamination, callus was formed after two weeks on control and selection (kanamycin-rich) medium and after one month also shoots were formed on both media. When cefotaxime was used, the regeneration procedure failed. The shoots were rooted on medium with a low concentration of NAA. After one month newly regenerated plantlets, whether or not transformed depending from the fact that they were grown on selective medium was confirmed by two PCR reaction. Positive GUS-assays on callus and roots, stems and leaves of the plants grown on kanamycin-rich medium showed that the newly inserted genes were really expressed. The newly transformed plants showed no difference with normal Artemisia annua plants.
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