Biotech Updates

Comparison of Agrobacterium and Particle Bombardment for Dev't of High-expressing, Low-copy Transgenic Plants

February 6, 2013

Scientists at the University of Queensland in Australia conducted a study to compare two mechanisms used in genetic transformation of plants, the Agrobacterium-mediated transformation (AMT) and particle bombardment using whole plasmid (WP) and excised minimal cassettes (MC). They aimed to compare the two in terms of transformation efficiency, transgene integration complexity, and transgene expression in plants.

For direct comparison, the researchers used identical expression cassette for the linked selectable marker and reporter genes in all treatments. Results showed that there were no significant differences in the transformation efficiencies of WP and MC when equal amounts of DNA were delivered. When the MC concentration was decreased, the transformation efficiency became equivalent with ATM, and thus both can be used efficiently to generate sugarcane lines with low transgene copy numbers and strong transgene expression.

Read the research article at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11248-012-9639-6#page-1.