To avoid the long time required for conventional sexual crossing, transgenic tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) plants harboring phbA gene (encoding 3_ketothiolase) were used as the target plant for the second transformation mediated by Agrobacterium tumefaciens (Smith et Townsend) Conn LBA4404 containing pZCB which was constructed by linking phbB (encoding acetoacetyl_CoA reductase), phbC (encoding PHB synthase) and ctp sequence to pBIB_HYG under the control of CaMV 35S promoter. The hygromycin resistant transformants were morphologically normal and stable integration of phbB and phbC was confirmed by PCR and PCR_Southern. Moreover, RT_PCR_DNA hybridization analysis showed that 6.67% of the transformed tobacco plants could express both phbB and phbC at transcriptional level.
