Sonication and Vacuum Infiltration Enhanced Agrobacterium Rhizogenes Mediated Transformation in Soybean

Objective: This study involved the formulation of protocol of Agrobacterium rhizogenes mediated transformation for the detailed study of isoflavones (IFs) metabolism in soybean. Methods: Cotyledons were separated from 4-day-old soybean seedlings and infected with three different A. rhizogenes strains under various time durations of sonication, vacuum infiltration and cocultivated on Murashige and Skoog medium supplemented with various concentrations of acetosyringone. The induced hairy roots were established as a culture with the selection agent hygromycin B. Transgenes integrated in hairy roots were analyzed at molecular level by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay. Results: A. rhizogenes strain R1000 harboring pCAMBIA1301 resulted in better transformation efficiency when compared with other strains. The optimum duration of sonication (2 minutes) and vacuum infiltration (2 minutes) enhanced the transformation efficiency up to 76.47%. PCR analyses revealed the integration of transgene in hairy roots lines. Conclusion: From this study, we could conclude that sonication and vacuum infiltration techniques could be employed to produce genotype independent transgenic soybean hairy root lines and which could be used to study for the improved production of potent anticancer compounds, IFs in soybean.