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Multigene plant transformation: More is better!

Nature Biotechnology volume 16, pages 1009–1010 (1998)Cite this article

Since the early 1980s, when the first transgenic plants were created, scientists have dreamed of how they could alter a plant to exhibit novel characteristics. Today, we have genetically engineered plants that are herbicide-tolerant, resistant to certain insect, fungal, or viral pathogens, have altered flower color, or bear fruit with altered ripening characteristics, to name but a few. Even so, several traits of potential commercial significance (e.g., simultaneous resistance to several different pathogens, crop yield, and nutrient composition) have remained elusive, largely because no method exists for expressing numerous transgenes in tandem to investigate genetic pathways and their effect on phenotype. In this issue, Chen et al.1 use particle bombardment to transform and regenerate rice plants containing up to 13 different transgenes. Their preliminary studies may pave the way to a general approach for multigene transformation in plants.

The first transgenic plants—whether created by Agrobacterium-mediated or direct gene transfer technologies—expressed only a selectable marker gene such as antibiotic resistance or herbicide tolerance. A few years later, scientists succeeded in creating plants by cotransformation, in which the selectable marker was matched with a non-selectable gene, such as one encoding ß-glucuronidase or a viral coat protein. Since the late 1980s, numerous transgenic plants expressing a selectable marker and one or two non-selectable traits have been generated and, in some instances, released for field trials and eventual commercialization.

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Figure 1: Models for multigene integration at a single genetic locus.

References

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  1. a professor in the department of biological sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, 47907-1392, IN

    Stanton B. Gelvin

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  1. Stanton B. Gelvin
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Gelvin, S. Multigene plant transformation: More is better!. Nat Biotechnol 16, 1009–1010 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/3452

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