Agrobacterium rhizogenes-Based Transformation of Soybean Roots to Form Composite Plants

Abstract

Transgenic soybean roots of composite plants are a powerful tool to rapidly test the function of genes and activity of gene promoters. No tissue culture is needed, thus avoiding loss of valuable material due to contamination. This is a simple technique that requires less training and care than tissue culture techniques. Furthermore, it takes less time to produce transgenic roots than techniques using sterile tissue culture. If the transgenic roots are to be challenged with a pathogen, there is no need to produce axenic pathogens with this technique, because sterile tissue culture medium is not used. Therefore, there is no agar medium on which contaminants may grow resulting in obscured results or diseased roots. Here, we describe the production of transgenic soybean roots on 7-day-old soybean seedlings using Agrobacterium rhizogenes. These composite plants may be grown in the greenhouse for further experimentation, such as to determine the effect of gene expression on nematode development.