Comparison of gene targeting efficiencies in two mosses suggests that it is a conserved feature of Bryophyte transformation

The moss, <i>Physcomitrella patens</i>, is a novel tool in plant functional genomics due to its exceptionally high gene targeting efficiency that is so far unique for plants. To determine if this high gene targeting efficiency is exclusive to <i>P. patens</i> or if it is a common feature to mosses, we estimated gene-targeting efficiency in another moss, <i>Ceratodon purpureus</i>. We transformed both mosses with replacement vectors corresponding to the adenine phosphoribosyl transferase (<i>APT</i>) reporter gene. We achieved a gene targeting efficiency of 20.8% for <i>P. patens</i> and 1.05% for <i>C. purpureus</i>. Our findings support the hypothesis that efficient gene targeting could be a general mechanism of Bryophyte transformation.