Development of molecular genetic resources for the liverwort, Marchantia polymorpha IV <Gateway binary vectors and T-DNA tagged lines>

Abstract

Liverworts, as extant representatives of the earliest land plants, are a key group to understand the regulatory mechanisms and the evolution of plant development. We previously reported a simple and efficient transformation of the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha using Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Hundreds of transformants carrying 1-5 copies of T-DNA randomly inserted in their genomes were obtained from a single sporandium. We tested several endogenous and exogenous promoters using GUS-reporter gene to find the promoter of the endogenous elongation factor 1α gene, pMpEF, as a potent ubiquitous promoter in M. polymorpha. We have generated a series of Gateway binary vectors for M. polymorpha with pMpEF and the fluorescent protein marker Citrine. We have also generated over 10,000 T-DNA tagged lines and isolated 19 lines which exhibited various morphological phenotypes.