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There has been recent rapid progress in the transformation of
plants with foreign DNA, making use either of the natural routes of
genetic invasion that viruses and bacteria have developed, or of
chemical, mechanical and electrical tricks to make plant protoplast
membranes permeable to nucleic acids. Genes integrated into plant
virus genomes can be carried systemi cally from the initial site of
infection into the rest of the plant. Genes placed between the
borders of Agrobacterium tumefaciens T-DNA can be transferred into
single cells or plant tissue, which then divides to produce wound
calli, or as in the case of an Agrobacterium rhizogenes infection,
grow out into new roots. Calli and roots can be grown into whole
plants. If virus genomes are placed between the T-DNA borders, a
very effective infectious route, termed "agroinfection," is
established. Once inside a pro toplast, DNA finds its way into the
nucleus where it can finally integrate into the resident chromosome
and be expressed. Whether it can also find its way into
chloroplasts is not yet clear, but at least translation products
can be targeted into this organelle. Regeneration of whole
organisms from single cells is a special feature of plants and
offers a unique tool to study genes in a multicellular organism. In
addition, as in animal cells, transcription and translation of
trans forming genes can be studied in plant cells during "transient
expression.""
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