North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Anton Callaway <marillen@earthlink.net>]

Agrobacterium rhizogenes is a naturally-occurring soil pathogen.  

It is important to realize that while the wild-type bacterium is effective in 
inducing roots, the roots that form from such an infection are not desirable 
from a production standpoint.  The scientists that are using this species 
have mostly worked with this bacterium as a proof-of-concept sort of thing.  
A more useful method of harnessing this bacterium is to first put it's 
root-inducing plant-hormone gene(s) under an inducible promoter so that the 
roots are initiated, but then the hormone can be turned off by the human and 
the roots can continue growth as "normal" roots.  The bacteria themselves are 
destroyed, but since the plant growth is altered by insertion of specific 
bacterial genes into the plant chromosomes, the plant growth can subsequently 
be regulated without any bacteria present.  Without knowledge and facilities 
to properly modify and contain this bacterium, its probably better to leave 
this "bug" alone.  It and it's cousin A. tumefaciens are serious pests in 
their wild state.  Plus, even though the wild Agrobacteria have been 
producing genetically-modified plants for millenia,  there are pretty strict 
regulations about humans knowingly planting transgenic plants in the open 
without prior license to do so.

However, I do encourage you to seek out a local plant molecular biologist at 
your nearest university and talk to them about these fascinating and useful 
critters.  

Anton

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Lee <markl@nytec.com>
Sent: Apr 29, 2005 4:18 PM
To: 'North American Fruit Explorers' <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: RE: [NAFEX] rooting difficult -to-root cuttings using  
Agrobacteriumrhizogenes 

I have no idea.  Hey NAFEX, where can we get some?

-Mark Lee, Seattle

 

-----Original Message-----
From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of bill dality
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2005 10:29 AM
To: North American Fruit Explorers
Subject: [NAFEX] rooting difficult -to-root cuttings using
Agrobacteriumrhizogenes 

 

Hey mark,

 where can i get some of this bug?

Mark Lee <markl@nytec.com> wrote:

I found this to be an interesting technical paper on rooting cuttings of
apple and pear trees.
"In vitro fruit trees rooting by Agrobacterium rhizogenes wild type
infection"
http://www.ejbiotechnology.info/content/vol1/issue3/full/4/4.PDF

Does anyone have experience with Agrobacterium rhizogenes? Researchers
have found it useful for rooting cuttings of kiwis and walnuts. Is this
a common bacteria?

-Mark Lee, Seattle

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