METHOD OF POSITIVE PLANT SELECTION USING SORBITOL DEHYDROGENASE

摘要

Transgenic plants and methods of culturing them using sorbitol as a sole carbon source are provided. One embodiment provides a method and system for positively selecting transgenic plants carrying and expressing a gene of interest. The transgenic plants are engineered to express sorbitol dehydrogenase in an amount effective to allow the transgenic plant to grow using sorbitol as the sole carbon source. In a preferred embodiment, the plant to be transformed does not have endogenous sorbitol dehydrogenase activity. Representative plants that can be transformed, include but are not limited to members of the Brassica family, industrial oilseeds, Arabidopsis thaliana, algae, soybean, cottonseed, sunflower, palm, coconut, rice, safflower, peanut, mustards, silage corn, alfalfa, switchgrass, miscanthus, sorghum, tobacco, sugarcane and flax.