what is transformation in plants?
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Answer:
Plant transformation is a way to insert DNA from another organism- normally another plant, into the genome of a plant of interest. For example, in my work I have inserted a gene called Stilbene synthase from grape into Tomato to enable the production of the medicinal compound resveratrol in high levels in tomatoes.
There are two types of plant transformation;
Stable transformation
Transient transformation
This post will focus on stable transformation, which is used for the stable introduction of a gene into a plant; meaning the gene will be fully integrated in the host genome, so it is expressed continuously, and will also be expressed in later generations of the plant.
This type of plant transformation is used for the longer-term research of genes, and for long-term production of a trait/compound in large scale.
Plant transformation involves 2 stages: Delivery of the DNA into a single cell, and regeneration into full fertile plants.
There are 2 main methods for gene delivery in plants; Agrobacterium and the particle gun. I am going to focus on Agrobacterium as this is what I use, but I will put some articles about the use of particle guns at the bottom.
Agrobacterium is a naturally occurring soil bacteria, which has the unique ability to transfer part of its own DNA into plant cells. In the wild, transfer of some of the bacterial DNA causes rapid plant cell division, and the development of a plant tumour.
In the lab we harness the DNA transfer ability of Agrobacterium, but remove the ‘tumour forming’ genes- instead replacing these with our genes of interest.
We inoculate Agrobacterium containing our genes of interest, onto wounded plant tissue explants. The Agrobacterium then transfers the gene of interest into the DNA of the plant tissue.
Answer:
Plant transformation is a way to insert DNA from another organism- normally another plant, into the genome of a plant of interest.
