Transgenics

Switchgrass plants in the greenhouse with the RUBY marker.

A young shoot with the ruby reporter gene under control of the ZmUbi promoter in Performer7 switchgrass.

Rice callus with the RUBY reporter. The confirmation of this reporter will help make screening easier.

The bottom cross-section of these pots of Switchgrass on the left show the impact of the RUBY reporter gene on their roots.

Ruby reporter gene under control of the ZmUbi promoter in Performer7 switchgrass.

The photo depicts a soybean transformed with the RUBY genes to produce betalin.

The photo shows tall fescue transformed with the RUBY genes to produce betalin.

The photo depicts a soybean seed engineered to produce beta-carotene. Beta-carotene serves as precursor to for other carotenoids important to animal husbandry, such as astaxanthin and canthaxanthin.

LEFT: A genotype of alfalfa grown in soil with an acid(left) or neutral (right) pH. The plant from acid soil is showing the classic symptom of aluminum toxicity as found in acid soils.RIGHT: The same plant after it has been engineered to produce citrate synthase, also grown in acid (left) or neutral (right) pH.

The photo shows a T₀ peanut plant (right)engineered with an antisense N gene from the tomato spotted wilt virus. This plant, and others like it, have remained asymptomatic for a year. In contrast, non-transgenic plants (like the one on the right) showed symptoms of infection. The progeny were field-tested during the summer of 1998.

The photo depicts a T₃ soybean plant engineered with a Bt gene for insect resistance. Non-engineered plants suffered complete defoliation from velvetbean caterpillars during a 1996 field trial. A larger field trial in 1997 and 1998 confirmed the initial results. We have now used SSR markers to stack Bt with QTLs for insect resistance in soybean, and found one very effective combination.