Agrobacterium mediated biotransformation

Twenty-five years ago, the concept of using Agrobacterium tumefaciens (soil gm-ve bacterium) as a vector to create transgenic plants (natural transformation) was viewed as a prospect and a “wish.” Transgenic plants generated by direct DNA transfer methods (e.g., polyethylene glycol or liposome-mediated transformation, electroporation, or particle bombardment) often integrate a large number of copies of the transgene in tandem or inverted repeat arrays, in either multiple or single loci. Genetically engineered corn, cotton and other crop plants have been produced whose genome contains a delta-endotoxin-coding region regulated by sequences. Hence the engineered plants produce the delta-endotoxin protein in their tissues, making them lethal when ingested by insects such as the europian corn borer, (that currently causes crop losses of field corn, popcorn, seedcorn and sweetcorn). From this some people feared that windborne pollen could dust many other plants and potentially harm beneficial insects such as butterflies and bees. Agrobacterium mediated transformed plants have economical and medicinal valuable products.