Agrobacterium-mediated in planta transformation of horticultural plants: Current status and future prospects

A comprehensive review of in planta stable transformation strategies

“…The act of generating stable plant transformants is a combination of two indissociable and interdependent steps: (i) the transformation of a plant cell; and (ii) the development of this cell into a whole plant [13]. In planta stable transformation, also called in situ transformation, techniques form a heterogeneous group of methods all aiming at performing the direct and stable integration of foreign T-DNA into a plant's genome and regenerating the transformed cells into whole plants [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Unlike in planta transient transformation strategies, such as agroinfiltration, in planta stable transformation aims at generating heritable modifications using exogenous genetic material.…”

“…(C) Imbibition of desiccated embryos [125]. To perform this method, seeds are first imbibed with sterile water and subsequently desiccated at room temperature for 9-36 h. The seeds are subsequently infected for 2 h with a solution of Agrobacterium and cultivated until the T 1 generation for selection as it is a simple and cost-effective option that generates few copy numbers in the generated transformants [11].…”

“…In addition, Agrobacterium is effective in a wide range of plant genotypes and species and can be used with various types of in planta strategies, thus making it a robust, reliable, and versatile transformation system [11]. Agrobacterium rhizogenes is generally used to perform in planta transformation that results in non-heritable changes through the formation of hairy roots in composite plants; however, the recently developed cut-dip-budding [41] and vine-cutting node inoculation [42] methods have demonstrated that A. rhizogenes can be used to perform stable transformation in asexually propagated plant species such as sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas).…”

“…As a whole, the success of this technique clearly depicts the potential of development for universal in planta methods, particularly in the era of CRISPR-Cas9 and high-throughput genome editing. Over the years, several review papers have been written on the topic of in planta transformation, thus demonstrating the importance of the concept [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Largely, papers focused on specific in planta methods, such as the floral dip and the shoot apical meristem (SAM) injury techniques, and do not include the most recent scientific developments in an area that is rapidly evolving.…”

Crop Improvement: Comparison of Transgenesis and Gene Editing

“…There are a huge number of examples of the use of agrobacterial transformation for the delivery of transgenic constructs into the genome of horticultural species. To date, protocols have been developed for many species, including fruit trees and many others [21]; for species that have difficulties with in vitro cultivation, methods of tissue culture-independent agrobacterial transformation have been developed [22]. Some of them are shown in Table 1.…”