Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer in higher plants

Abstract

The genetic engineering of plants actually started with the discovery of a pathogenic bacterium, Agrobacterium tumefaciens, causing a disease known as crown gall (tumor). The bacterium transfers a set of genes from its plasmid into infected plant cells, where the transferred genes are expressed and produced gall at the junction of root and stem (i.e., crown region of the plant). This discovery has revolutionized the plant transformation method through which any gene can be introduced into plant genome to change their genetic make-up for commercial benefits, spaning from disease resistance to the production of pharmaceutically important proteins.