Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris) line A5/15 was produced by Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation with the vector pMON17204. It is tolerant to glyphosate-containing herbicides.
A5/15 sugar beet plants constitutively express the cp4 epsps gene from Agrobacterium sp. strain CP4 coding for a 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase with an N-terminal chloroplast transit peptide sequence from the Arabidopsis thaliana EPSPS gene.
The transformation vector pMON17204 also contains the GUS-gene uidA from Escherichia coli, the gox gene from Ochronobactrum anthropi coding for a glyphosate oxidoreductase, and the selection marker gene nptII coding for the neomycin phosphotransferase II, but these elements are not present in A5/15.
Southern blot and PCR analyses showed that the T-DNA was truncated in the E9 3' element (T-rbcSE9-PEA) resulting in a fully functional _cp4 epsps gene. No other elements of the pMON 17204 T-DNA are inserted into line A5/15 and there is one copy of the truncated T-DNA inserted into a single locus of line A5/15. The stability of the integrated insert was shown over three generations. No genetic elements from outside of the right and left borders of the plasmid were transferred into the genomic DNA.
Sources:
Summary Notification Information Format for Genetically Modified Higher Plants C/DK/97/01,
and:
European Communities - Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products DS291, DS292, DS293