BIOLISTIC DELIVERY OF FOREIGN DNA OR GENOMIC TRANSCRIPTS OF PLANT-VIRUS FULL-LENGTH CDNA CLONES INTO MONOCOTYLEDONOUS AND DICOTYLEDONOUS PLANT-TISSUES

Using an improved particle gun driven by compressed nitrogen gas (20 k g/cm(2) pressure), embryos of oat (Avena sativa) and wheat (Triticum a estivum) or primary leaves of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) were bombarde d with gold particles coated with the vector DNA, pBI121, or genomic t ranscript RNAs of sweet clover necrotic mosaic virus (SCNMV). GUS gene expression in the oat seedlings was detected in the apical meristems of the primary and emerging lateral roots, and in the root hairs, proc ambium, stele, coleoptiles, phloem elements, and leaf tissues. However , the retention of the foreign gene in the engineered plants was trans ient and the gene was lost in the absence of Kanamycin stress. With ge nomic transcipts of SCNMV full-length cDNA clones of 5 ng per bombardm ent, replication of the delivered genomic viral transcripts was suppor ted by intact primary leaves of cowpea.