Differences in susceptibility of Arabidopsis ecotypes to crown gall disease may result from a deficiency in T-DNA integration.

We show that among ecotypes of Arabidopsis, there is considerable variation in their susceptibility to crown gall disease. Differences in susceptibility are heritable and, in one ecotype, segregate as a single major contributing locus. In several ecotypes, recalcitrance to tumorigenesis results from decreased binding of Agrobacterium to inoculated root explants. The recalcitrance of another ecotype occurs at a late step in T-DNA transfer. Transient expression of a T-DNA-encoded beta-glucuronidase gusA gene is efficient, but the ecotype is deficient in crown gall tumorigenesis, transformation to kanamycin resistance, and stable GUS expression. This ecotype is also more sensitive to gamma radiation than is a susceptible ecotype. DNA gel blot analysis showed that after infection by Agrobacterium, less T-DNA was integrated into the genome of the recalcitrant ecotype than was integrated into the genome of a highly susceptible ecotype.