Recent Advances in the Genetic Transformation of Coffee

Abstract

Coffee is one of the most important plantation crops, grown in about 80 countries across the world. The genus Coffea comprises approximately 100 species of which only two species, that is, Coffea arabica (commonly known as arabica coffee) and Coffea canephora (known as robusta coffee), are commercially cultivated. Genetic improvement of coffee through traditional breeding is slow due to the perennial nature of the plant. Genetic transformation has tremendous potential in developing improved coffee varieties with desired agronomic traits, which are otherwise difficult to achieve through traditional breeding. During the last twenty years, significant progress has been made in coffee biotechnology, particularly in the area of transgenic technology. This paper provides a detailed account of the advances made in the genetic transformation of coffee and their potential applications.

Anti-diabetic effect of Coffea arabica, in alloxan-induced diabetic rats

“…It is obtained from the processing of the fruits of coffee tree, whole plant of the genus Coffea, Rubiaceae family (Davies et al, 2006;Castilla, 2012). They grow in more than 80 countries in tropical and subtropical regions, especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America (Mishra et al, 2012).…”

Analysis of Genome Size of Sixteen Coffea arabica Cultivars Using Flow Cytometry

“…Coffee is an important commodity in terms of international trade (The Observatory of Economic Complexity, 2018) and is grown in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, covering a surface of 10 million ha (Mishra and Slater, 2012). Coffee cultivars belong to the genus Coffea (Rubiaceae family), which includes more than 100 mostly diploid species (2n = 2x = 22), except for C. arabica (2n = 4x = 44), which is autogamous and allotetraploid (Noirot et al, 2003a).…”

Identification of a seed maturation protein gene from Coffea arabica (CaSMP) and analysis of its promoter activity in tomato

“…elite materials. In this regard, among the tools often required to generate genetically modified coffee plants, the availability of promoters with desired expression patterns is of paramount importance (Mishra and Slater 2012).…”

“…Other examples include the promoter regions of genes involved in stress and defense responses (Brandalise et al 2009;Severino et al 2012;Petitot et al 2013;Nobres et al 2016;Alves et al 2017), in light-regulated carbon fixation (Marraccini et al 2003) and in caffeine biosynthesis (Satyanarayana et al 2005). In practice, however, the 35S promoter is still the preferred choice for the construction of expression cassettes employed in coffee biotechnology (Mishra and Slater 2012).…”