Methods for identifying transgenic plants using morphological markers

Abstract

Morphological markers are used in a method of visually identifying plants transformed with a nucleotide sequence (e.g., a heterologous gene). The nucleotide sequence is transformed into a plant that exhibits an abnormal phenotype for a morphological marker. If the transformation of the plant is successful, the progeny of the transformed plant will exhibit a normal phenotype. In a preferred embodiment, the plant is Arabidopsis and the morphological marker is Gl1, which is associated with trichome production on plant leaves. The method is also useful for identifying plants that are homozygous for the transformed gene, and for identifying transformants in the T2 generation that are true crosses, rather than self-crosses.