Patent ID: 7112720

Claim:
A method of transforming an Allium cepa plant comprising the following steps: (a) transforming embryo cells of the Allium cepa plant with DNA sequences via a vector or direct gene transfer to produce transformed plant material, wherein transformation is achieved by: (i) wounding the embryo cells and transferring the embryo cells into a suspension of Agrobacterium, (ii) transferring the embryo cells from step (i) to a culture medium; (iii) co-cultivating the embryo cells and the Agrobacterium attached to the embryo cells for a period of 1–12 days from the end of step (ii); (b) selecting the transformed plant material derived from step (a), by transferring the embryo cells to a selection medium containing the appropriate selection agents to kill the agrobacteria and preferentially grow the transgenic embryo cells to produce transformed plant material; (c) culturing the transformed plant material from (b) to produce secondary embryos and regenerating transformed plant material from the secondary embryos; and (d) obtaining a transformed Allium plant from the secondary embryo; wherein the method of transforming is carried out without a passage through a callus phase.