Agrobacterium tumefaciens virE1 Inhibits crown gall development in transgenic grapevine

The biotic and abiotic stresses are the major limiting factors in plant productivity. To overcome these difficulties molecular breeding methods have recently been widely used to improve the stress and disease resistance of grapevine cultivars. Crown gall disease caused by Agrobacterium vitis or Agrobacterium tumefaciens causes serious damage worldwide on grapevine, and there is no efficient method yet that can be routinely used by grape-growers to prevent this disease. Therefore genetic manipulation for crown gall resistance would have a great economic impact. To this end embryogenic culture of Vitis berlandieri × Vitis rupestris cv. Richter 110 was transformed with a virE1 gene construct. Twenty-six plant lines were selected, and their transgenic nature was confirmed by PCR analysis. Seventeen of the 26 lines showed resistance to crown gall disease following inoculation with A. vitis Tm4 strain