Book Summary:
The Advanced Methods series is intended for advanced undergraduates, graduate students and established research scientists. Titles in the series are designed to cover current important areas of research in life sciences, and include both theoretical background and detailed protocols. The aim is to give researchers sufficient theory, supported by references, to take the given protocols and adapt them to their particular experimental systems.
Gene transfer to plants was first achieved more than 20 years ago. Since then, plant transformation technology has developed rapidly and in the last few years the benefits of this research have become apparent in the commercial production of engineered plants that are resistant to pests and diseases, plants with enhanced or modified traits and plants that are used as factories to produce valuable molecules. As with any expanding technology, it becomes difficult to find a concise and comprehensive source of information that explains all the underlying principles and brings together disparate techniques. Gene Transfer to Plants describes the principles of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, direct transformation and gene transfer using plant viruses. The book also describes how transgene expression is controlled in plants and how advanced transformation strategies can be used to manipulate and modify the plant genome. The final chapter provides an overview of all the applications of plant transformation in agriculture, medicine and industry. |