Isolation and identification of Agrobacterium rhizogenes inducing hairy roots of Catharanthus roseus in vivo

Agrobacterium rhizogenes is a common tool for transforming foreign genes into plant cell and inducing hairy root formation. A total of 274 colonies of Agrobacterium species was isolated on selective MG-Te medium from 235 samples of rhizophere soils. There were only thirteen colonies belonged to A. rhizogenes being able to efficiently induce the hairy root formation of Catharanthus roseus in vivo based on the morphological, biochemical, and pathogenicity tests. These thirteen colonies were identified as A. rhizogenes based on 16S rRNA sequence and possessing rolABC genes. The results indicated A. rhizogenes was universal in rhizophere soil in Vietnam and riched transgenic tools for researching C. roseus hairy roots in the future.