Plastid engineering offers several advantages compared to traditional transgenic technologies, such as high protein expression levels, transgene containment, multi-gene expression in a single transcriptional unit and absence of position effects and gene silencing. In higher plants, however, plastid transformation has been routinely obtained only in tobacco.

Scientists from the Italian National Research Council reported the first stable plastid transformation in sugarbeet. The researchers used the biolistic technique to integrate the aadA and gfp transgenes in the beet plastome. Transplastomic sugarbeets may solve problems related to the outcrossing of genetically modified varieties, conventional varieties and wild relatives. Sugarbeet is well known to inter-cross easily with its wild cousin, the seabeet or with annual weed beets that occur in the field.

The paper published by Transgenic Research is available to subscribers at http://www.springerlink.com/content/e1x4415125jgj226/fulltext.pdf Non-subscribers can read the abstract at http://www.springerlink.com/content/e1x4415125jgj226/?p=64d5f6981ad640b6a3ec83480883e74d&pi=0.