The Populus Genome Science Plan Tissue Culture & Transformation Panel

Background Although scientists often generically refer to the procedure by which plants are genetically engineered as “transformation”, it really entails two separate processes. The first, transformation, involves stable integration of DNA into the chromosome of an individual plant cell. The second step, regeneration, is the process by which individual transformed cells are coaxed, through hormonal and cultural manipulations, to develop into a whole plant. Generally, regeneration is the most limiting of the two processes.