Abstract
The biological function of the agrobacterial oncogene rolA is very poorly understood compared to other components of the mechanism of horizontal gene transfer during agrobacterial colonization of plants. Research groups around the world have worked on this problem, and available information is reviewed in this review, but other rol oncogenes have been studied much more thoroughly. Having one unexplored element makes it impossible to form a complete picture. However, the limited data suggest that the rolA oncogene and its regulatory apparatus have great potential in plant biotechnology and genetic engineering. Here, we collect and discuss available experimental data about the function and structure of rolA. There is still no clear understanding of the mechanism of RolA and its structure and localization. We believe this is because of the nucleotide structure of a frameshift in the most well-studied rolA gene of the agropine type pRi. In fact, interest in the genes of agrobacteria as natural tools for the phenotypic or biochemical engineering of plants increased. We believe that a detailed understanding of the molecular mechanisms will be forthcoming.
Key points
• Among pRi T-DNA oncogenes, rolA is the least understood in spite of many studies.
• Frameshift may be the reason for the failure to elucidate the role of agropine rolA.
• Understanding of rolA is promising for the phenotypic and biochemical engineering of plants.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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We the thank researchers who have devoted their time and energy to the study of the structure and function of the rol genes. We thank Richard H. Lozier for his interest in our work and for English-language editing.
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Financial support was provided by the Russian Science Foundation, Grant No. 23–24-00215.
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Galina N. Veremeichik: conceptualization, supervision, writing—original draft. Dmitry S. Makhazen, Dmitry V. Bulgakov, Taisia O. Solomatina: visualization, writing—original draft.
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Veremeichik, G.N., Bulgakov, D.V., Solomatina, T.O. et al. In the interkingdom horizontal gene transfer, the small rolA gene is a big mystery. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 107, 2097–2109 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-023-12454-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-023-12454-y