Abstract Production of transgenic sweetpotato plants expressing the bar gene for herbicide resistance was achieved using Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation and sweetpotato cv. Lizixiang embryogenic suspension cultures. Total 450 embryogenic cell aggregates were cocultivated with the A. tumefaciens strain LBA4404 harboring a binary vector pCAMBIA3300 with the bar gene. Eight weeks after selection on MS medium supplemented with2.0 mg/L 2,4-D, 100 mg/L Carb and 0.5 mg/L PPT, 19 PPT-resistant embryogenic calluses were produced. After transferred to MS medium supplemented with 1.0 mg/L ABA, 100 mg/L Carb and 0.5 mg/L PPT, 10 of them formed 103 putatively transgenic plants. PCR analysis indicated that 69 plants were transgenic. Stable integration of the bar gene into the genome of transgenic plants was confirmed by Southern blot analysis. Transgenic plants exhibited functional expression of the bar gene by in vivo assay for herbicide resistance.
