Co-expression of GR79 EPSPS and GAT generates high glyphosate-resistant alfalfa with low glyphosate residues

Yingying Meng; Wenwen Zhang; Zhaoming Wang; Feng Yuan; Sandui Guo; Hao Lin; Lifang Niu

doi:10.1007/s42994-023-00119-3

Co-expression of GR79 EPSPS and GAT generates high glyphosate-resistant alfalfa with low glyphosate residues

aBIOTECH. 2023 Oct 19;4(4):352-358. doi: 10.1007/s42994-023-00119-3. eCollection 2023 Dec.

Authors

Yingying Meng^#¹, Wenwen Zhang^#¹, Zhaoming Wang^{2

3}, Feng Yuan^{2

3}, Sandui Guo¹, Hao Lin¹, Lifang Niu¹

Affiliations

¹ Biotechnology Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081 China.
² Inner Mongolia Pratacultural Technology Innovation Center Co., Ltd, Hohhot, 010010 China.
³ National Center of Pratacultural Technology Innovation (Under Preparation), Hohhot, 010010 China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Weed competition seriously threatens the yield of alfalfa, the most important forage legume worldwide, thus generating herbicide-resistant alfalfa varieties is becoming a necessary cost-effective strategy to assist farmers for weed control. Here, we report the co-expression of plant codon-optimized forms of GR79 EPSPS (pGR79 EPSPS) and N-acetyltransferase (pGAT) genes, in alfalfa, via Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. We established that the pGR79 EPSPS-pGAT co-expression alfalfa lines were able to tolerate up to tenfold higher commercial usage of glyphosate and produced approximately ten times lower glyphosate residues than the conventional cultivar. Our findings generate an elite herbicide-resistant germplasm for alfalfa breeding and provide a promising strategy for developing high-glyphosate-resistant and low-glyphosate-residue forages.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42994-023-00119-3.

Keywords: Alfalfa; Forage; High-glyphosate-resistant and low-glyphosate-residue; pGAT; pGR79 EPSPS.