Abstract
Biotechnological methods for targeted gene transfers into plants are key for successful breeding in the twenty-first century and thus essential for the survival of humanity. Two decades ago, genetic transformation of crop plants was not routine, and it was all but impossible with important cereals such as barley and wheat. The recent focus on crop plant genomics—yet based on the Arabidopsis toolbox—boosted the research for more efficient plant transformation protocols, thereby considerably widened the number of genetically tractable crops. Moreover, modern genome editing methods such as the CRISPR/Cas technique are game changers in plant breeding, though heavily dependent on technical optimization of plant transformation. Basically, there are two successful ways of introducing DNA into plant cells: one is making use of a living DNA vector, namely, microbes such as the soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens that infects plants and naturally transfers and subsequently integrates DNA into the plant genome. The other method uses a direct physical transfer of DNA by means of microinjection, microprojectile bombardment, or polymers such as polyethylene glycol. Both ways subsequently require sophisticated strategies for selecting and multiplying the transformed cells under tissue culture conditions to develop into a fully functional plant with the new desirable characteristics. Here we discuss practical and theoretical aspects of cereal crop plant transformation by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and microparticle bombardment. Using immature embryos as explants, the efficiency of cereal transformation is compelling, reaching today up to 80% transformation efficiency.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Fraley RT, Rogers SG, Horsch RB, Sanders PR, Flick JS, Adams SP, Bittner ML, Brand LA, Fink CL, Fry JS, Galluppi GR, Goldberg SB, Hoffmann NL, Woo SC (1983) Expression of bacterial genes in plant cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 80:4803–4807
Herrera-Estrella L, Depicker A, Van Montagu M, Schell J (1983) Expression of chimaeric genes transferred into plant cells using a Ti-plasmid-derived vector. Nature 303:209–213
Bevan M, Flavell R, Chilton M (1983) A chimaeric antibiotic resistance gene as a selectable marker for plant cell transformation. Nature 304:184–187
Koncz C, Martini N, Mayerhofer R, Koncz-Kalman KH, Redei GP, Schell J (1989) High-frequency T-DNA-mediated gene tagging in plants. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 86:8467–8471
Feldmann KA (1991) T-DNA insertion mutagenesis in Arabidopsis: mutational spectrum. Plant J 1:71–82
Gordon JE, Christie PJ (2014) The Agrobacterium Ti Plasmids. Microbiol Spectr 2(6). https://doi.org/10.1128/microbiolspec.PLAS-0010-2013
Raineri DM, Bottino P, Gordon MP, Nester EW (1990) Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of rice (Oryza sativa). Bio-Technol 8:33–38
Ishida Y, Saito H, Ohta S, Hiei H, Komari T, Kumashiro T (1996) High efficiency transformation of maize (Zea mays L) mediated by Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Nat Biotechnol 14:745–750
Tingay S, McElroy D, Kalla R, Fieg S, Wang M, Thornton S, Brettell R (1997) Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated barley transformation. Plant J 11:1369–1376
Mooney PA, Goodwin PB, Dennis ES, Llewellyn DJ (1991) Agrobacterium tumefaciens -gene transfer into wheat tissues. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Culture 25:209–218
Cheng M, Fry JE, Pang S, Zhou H, Hironaka CM, Duncan DR, Conner TW, Wan Y (1997) Plant Physiol 115:971–980
Popelka JC, Altpeter F (2003) Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated genetic transformation of rye (Secale cereale L.). Mol Breed 11:203–211
de Groot MJ, Bundock AP, Hooykaas PJJ, Beijersbergen AGM (1998) Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation of filamentous fungi. Nat Biotechnol 16:839–842
Bundock P, den Dulk-Ras A, Beijersbergen A, Hooykaas PJ (1995) Trans-kingdom T-DNA transfer from Agrobacterium tumefaciens to Saccharomyces cerevisiae. EMBO J 14:3206–3214
Cheng R, Ma R, Li K, Rong H, Lin X, Wang Z, Yang S, Ma Y (2012) Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated transformation of marine microalgae Schizochytrium. Microbiol Res 167:179–186
Kunik T, Tzfira T, Kapulnik Y, Gafni Y, Dingwall C, Citovsky V (2001) Genetic transformation of HeLa cells by Agrobacterium. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 98:1871–1876
Keshavareddy G, Kumar ARV, Vemanna SR (2018) Methods of plant transformation—a review. Int J Curr Microbiol App Sci 7:2656–2668
Zhou Y, Singh BR (2002) Red light stimulates flowering and anthocyanin biosynthesis in American cranberry. Plant Growth Regul 38:165–171
Ugarte CC, Trupkin SA, Ghiglione H, Slafer G, Casal JJ (2010) Low red/far-red ratios delay spike and stem growth in wheat. J Exp Bot 61:3151–3162
Imani J, Li L, Schäfer P, Kogel KH (2011) STARTS—a stable root transformation system for rapid functional analyses of proteins of the monocot model plant barley. Plant J 67:726–735
Imani J, Berting A, Nitsche S, Schäfer S, Gerlich WH, Neumann KH (2002) The integration of a major hepatitis B virus gene into cell-cycle synchronized carrot cell suspension cultures and its expression in regenerated carrot plants. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Culture 71:157–164
Lazo GR, Stein PA, Ludwig RA (1991) A DNA transformation-competent Arabidopsis genomic library in Agrobacterium. Biotechnology 9:963–967
Monostori I, Heilmann M, Kocsy G, Rakszegi M, Ahres M, Altenbach SB, Szalai G, Pál M, Toldi D, Simon-Sarkadi L, Harnos N, Galiba G, Darko É (2018) LED lighting—modification of growth, metabolism, yield and flour composition in wheat by spectral quality and intensity. Front Plant Sci 9:605
Hoekema A, Hirsch PR, Hooykaas PJJ, Schilperoort RA (1983) A binary plant vector strategy based on separation of vir- and T-region of the Agrobacterium tumefaciens Ti-plasmid. Nature 303:179–180
Ditta G, Stanfield S, Corbin D, Helinski DR (1980) Broad host range DNA cloning system for Gram-negative bacteria: construction of a gene bank of Rhizobium meliloti. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 77:7347–7351
Acknowledgments
We thank E. Swidtschenko and C. Dechert for excellent technical assistance.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Imani, J., Kogel, KH. (2020). Plant Transformation Techniques: Agrobacterium- and Microparticle-Mediated Gene Transfer in Cereal Plants. In: Rustgi, S., Luo, H. (eds) Biolistic DNA Delivery in Plants. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2124. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0356-7_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0356-7_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-0355-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-0356-7
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols