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Agrobacterium rhizogenes-mediated transformation of soybean to study root biology

Nature Protocols volume 2, pages 948–952 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

This protocol is used to induce transgenic roots on soybean to study the function of genes required in biological processes of the root. Young seedlings with unfolded cotyledons are infected at the cotyledonary node and/or hypocotyl with Agrobacterium rhizogenes carrying the gene construct to be tested and the infection sites are kept in an environment of high humidity. When the emerged hairy roots can support the plants, the main roots are removed and the transgenic roots can be tested. Using this method, almost 100% of the infected plants form hairy roots within 1 month from the start of the experiments.

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Figure 1: Different stages of the soybean hairy root transformation.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Australian Research Council for an ARC Centre of Excellence grant (CEO348212), the University of Queensland Strategic Research Fund and the Queensland Government Smart State Initiative for funding. A.I. and S.N. acknowledge the PhD scholarship from AUSAID and from the Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (IPST), Thailand, respectively.

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Author notes

  1. Attila Kereszt and Dongxue Li: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Affiliations

  1. ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, 4072, Queensland, Australia

    Attila Kereszt, Dongxue Li, Arief Indrasumunar, Cuc DT Nguyen, Sureeporn Nontachaiyapoom, Mark Kinkema & Peter M Gresshoff

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  1. Attila Kereszt
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  2. Dongxue Li
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  3. Arief Indrasumunar
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  6. Mark Kinkema
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  7. Peter M Gresshoff
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Correspondence to Peter M Gresshoff.

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Supplementary Note

Selected publications on hairy root transformation of leguminous plants (PDF 79 kb)

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Kereszt, A., Li, D., Indrasumunar, A. et al. Agrobacterium rhizogenes-mediated transformation of soybean to study root biology. Nat Protoc 2, 948–952 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2007.141

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