Engineering in Plant Genome Using Agrobacterium: Progress and Future

Abstract

Plant genetic and metabolic engineering has emerged as an important area in plant science for crop improvement programmes. Efficient and stable genetic transformation is a great need for successful engineering in plants. Various significant improvements have been made for an efficient genetic transformation method in plants. However, Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation of plants is the most widely used among all known transformation methods. In the past few decades, progress in Agrobacterium-mediated transformation has led to the emergence of various transgenic technologies, including overexpression of recombinant protein in plants, knockdown of targeted gene through RNAi approach, targeted genome editing, and generation of marker-free transgenic plants. Various binary and super binary vectors have been developed in past few decades, which overcome hurdle of genetic transformation in higher and recalcitrant plant species. In addition, the use of different strains of Agrobacterium and other parameters during optimization of plant transformation protocol also enhanced genetic transformation efficiency. This recent advancement of genetic engineering tools has boosted agricultural biotechnology and overcome the limitation of conventional plant breeding methods. The recently developed genome-editing tool based on “CRISPR/Cas-mediated genome editing” is being applied to various plant species including crop and woody plant. Using this tool we can generate “marker- or transgene-free” genetically modified plants, which are therefore more acceptable for field release. The use of different genetic engineering tools in the area of agricultural and industrial biotechnology leads to production of improved crop variety and economically important metabolites.