Novel Techniques for Gene Delivery into Plants and Its Applications for Disease Resistance in Crops

Abstract

From the early past to the present, biotechnologies have produced the ability to genetically transform a wide variety of plant species. The plant transformation technologies have changed the face of agriculture and plant biology. Plant genetic transformation is one of the key technologies for crop improvement in addition to emerging approach for producing recombinant proteins in plants. Both plastid genomes and plant nuclear can be genetically modified. Until now, essential functional differences between the prokaryotic-like genome of the plastid and the eukaryotic genome of the plant cell nucleus will have an impact on characteristics of transgenic organism. Thus, the main goals are to generate transgenic plants with the traits of interest as well as minimizing the amount of transgenic DNA in plants while maximizing stability of gene expression and trait performance. In this review, two broad groups of gene delivery methods will be discussed namely, (bilogical and physical methods) and subsequently there applications for improving disease resistance will be discussed.

A Review of Nanotechnology as a Novel Method of Gene Transfer in Plants

“…The principle behind this method is the bombardment of plant cells with gold or tungsten particles loaded with exogenous DNA. These micro-projectiles are accelerated by pressurized helium gas and shot into host plant cells and tissues causing the DNA to enter into cells (Rai et al,2015;Rashid and Lateef, 2016;Cunningham et al, 2018). The ability to be utilized on species with higher level of heterozygosity and over a range of cells and tissues such callus, embryos, leaves make this method successful with a wider application potential (Rai et al,2015).…”

“…The term "electroporation" itself explains the principle involved in this method of transformation. The short high voltage electric field, in particular effective pulse for plant cells ranges between 500-1000V/cm (Bates, 1995) forms transient pores in cell membrane permitting entry of plasmid DNA into cytoplasm (Rai et al,2015;Rashid and Lateef, 2016;Demirer and Landry, 2017). Earlier, this transformation was successfully applied in protoplasts and later on intact plant cells e.g.…”

“…Genome modification is a multistep process which consists of (1) introduction of GOI into cells and tissues (2) integration and expression of inserted DNA into host genome; nucleus (3) selection and culture of transformed cells (4) regeneration of entire plant from selected tissues (Rashid and Lateef, 2016). Of these steps, delivery of DNA into plant cells is the crucial step in genetic transformation in which rigid and multi layered cell wall impedes the traverse of biomolecules that are larger in size than size exclusion limit of cell wall (20 nm).…”

Genetic Improvement of Tropical and Subtropical Fruit Trees via Biolistic Methods

“…In fact, the biotechnology methods now became as routine tools in biology research and plant transformation. So various methods had been introduced by the scientist for gene delivery to the plant cells (which may not be achievable by the traditional breeding methods), and subsequently they successfully regenerated without serious limitations [1][2][3][4]. Gene transferring to plant tissues can be achieved by two means: direct or indirect methods.…”

“…However, indirect gene transformation to plant tissues is usually achieved by mediated Agrobacterium strains. At the present time, in the most laboratories, gene delivery to plant tissues is achieved by mainly two means including biolistic and Agrobacterium methods [2,4]. However, most of the gene transformation studies on fruit trees have been mediated by Agrobacterium strains, and biolistic has been less frequently used [6].…”