Insect resistant transgenic pea expressing cry1Ac gene product from Bacillus thuringiensis

Insect pests are the major constraints of grain legumes production and storage. Improvement through conventional breeding strategies has been limited by the lack of resistance traits within the gene pool for most of the economically important pests. This gap can be closed by transgenic approaches using resistance genes from different sources. In this study, we report the development of insect resistant transgenic peas expressing a plant codon optimized cry1Ac gene from Bacillus thuringiensis. The transgenic nature of regenerated in vitro plants and their segregating progenies has been confirmed through molecular analyses (PCR, Southern blot, RT-PCR and immunostrip assay). The introduced transgene was inherited up to the T4 generation. Insect bioassay using larvae of tobacco budworm indicated total larval mortality and significantly reduced feeding damage on the developed transgenic pea plants as compared to 85% larval survival and heavy feeding damage on non-transgenic control plants. The developed transgenic lines can be used for further studies such as gene stacking and field trials. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.