Genetic engineering of crop plants has been successful in transferring traits into elite lines beyond what can be achieved with breeding techniques. Introduction of transgenes originating from other species has conferred resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, increased efficiency, and modified developmental programs. The next challenge is now to combine multiple transgenes into elite varieties via gene stacking to combine traits. Generating stable homozygous lines with multiple transgenes requires selection of segregating generations which is time consuming and labor intensive, especially if the crop is polyploid. Insertion site effects and transgene copy number are important metrics for commercialization and trait efficiency.
We have developed a simple method to identify the sites of transgene insertions using T-DNA-specific primers and high-throughput sequencing that enables identification of multiple insertion sites in the T1generation of any crop transformed via
This new methodology enables the early selection of desirable transgene location and copy number to generate homozygous lines within two generations.
