Abstract:

The fused pea ts-rbcS fragment and crtB gene from Erwinia herbicola was inserted into the PMV plasmid vector, resulting the plant expression vector pBI-ts-rbcS-crtB，which was transformed into tomato by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. The result of PCR，Southern blot and RT-PCR revealed that foreign crtB gene was integrated and expressed in the transgenic tomato lines. Total carotenoids contents in the fruits of transgenic lines were 1.3–2.5 times higher than that of the control, the phytoene, lycopene，β-carotene and α-carotene contents were 4.3，1.8，2.2，and 2.3 times higer respectively.In addition，the expression of endogenous genes involved in carotenoid synthesis was affected in the transgenic lines. These results suggested that overexpression of crtB significantly enhanced the carotenoids biosynthesis and accumulation in transgenic tomato fruits.

Key words: tomato, Erwinia herbicola, phytoene synthease, construction of expression vector, genetic transformation