Ten lessons from 15 years of transgenic Populus research

The goal of this paper is to describe the diverse kinds of research and interactions with the private and public sectors we have had while creating and field-testing many different kinds of transgenic poplars (genus Populus, aspens and cottonwoods) over the last ~15 years. [We use ‘transgenic’ to refer to any trees produced using asexual gene transfer, regardless of the origin of the genes.] Our laboratory has generated more than 6500 independent gene-transfer events in 17 different genotypes of Populus, and field-tested more than 1600 of these lines. This has given us extensive experience with how transformation affects the behaviour of trees grown on a moderately large scale. It has also given us a different perspective about the reliability of transformation than seems to be common in most academic laboratories that study transgenic plants for basic research purposes. We have benefited from excellent growing conditions for poplars in the Pacific Northwestern USA, where trees grow in the order of 3 m in height Ten lessons from 15 years of transgenic Populus research