Poster: Late and Moved Abstracts

Abs # 938: Agrobacterium- Mediated Transformation of Creeping Bentgrass cv. Penn A-4 Using a Mutant bas1 Construct for the Production of Dwarf Plants.

Presenter:	Budziszek, Michael , mbudziszek@mail.uri.edu
Authors	Budziszek, Michael  (A)   Powell, Jessica  (A)   Longo, Chip  (A)   Maxwell, Rachel  (A)   Masso, Kristin  (A)   Lins, Jeremy  (A)   Crothers, Nicole  (A)   Clark, Alison  (A)   Steere, Brian  (A)   Gaudette, Amy  (A)   Stewart, Valerie  (A)   Palazoo, Robert  (A)   Luo, Hong  (A)   Neff, Michael  (B)   Chandlee, Joel  (A)   Kausch, Albert  (A)   Neill, Alissa  (A)
Affiliations:	(A): University of Rhode Island (B): Washington University

In the United States alone, over 40 million acres of land is devoted to the growth of turf grasses. The turf grass industry plays an enormous part in today’s economy, far exceeding agricultural products. As a popular ornamental plant for personal lawns and recreational fields, it creates a tremendous environmental impact. Creeping Bentgrass, (Agrostis stolonifera L.) is a cool season, outcrossing, wind pollinated, stoloniferous, perennial turf used widely throughout the world. New genes can be introduced into grasses that confer valuable traits such as drought and stress tolerance. The bas1 gene encodes for a class of plant growth hormones known as brassinosteroids. Through genetic transformation via Agrobacterium tumefaciens, we have introduced a mutant bas1 gene fused to a ubiquitin rice promoter into creeping Bentgrass (cv. Penn A-4) to test induction of dwarfism. This approach has been demonstrated in Arabidopsis and tobacco to produce dwarf plants by altering the levels of brassinosteroids available for plant growth. Penn A-4 embryogenic callus was coinfected with two strains of A. tumefaciens respectively containing the mutant bas1 vector and a tandem male sterility linked to herbicide resistance selectable marker bar. Separate Ti plasmids were used to test transgene segregation later in a breeding program. Putative transformants were analyzed by PCR to establish cotransformation frequencies and phenotypic analysis is currently being performed. We expect to competitively inhibit brassinosteroid function within the plant, thus shortening internodes and slowing growth. The potential applications of this project might lower the environmental impact of turf up-keep such as watering, mowing, and fertilization.