Escobar Matthew A, Dandekar Abhaya M
Department of Cell and Organism Biology, Lund University, Sölvegatan 35, Lund, SE-22362, Sweden.
Trends Plant Sci. 2003 Aug;8(8):380-6. doi: 10.1016/S1360-1385(03)00162-6.
Twenty-six years ago it was found that the common soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens is capable of extraordinary feats of interkingdom genetic transfer. Since this discovery, A. tumefaciens has served as a model system for the study of type IV bacterial secretory systems, horizontal gene transfer and bacterial-plant signal exchange. It has also been modified for controlled genetic transformation of plants, a core technology of plant molecular biology. These areas have often overshadowed its role as a serious, widespread phytopathogen - the primary driver of the first 80 years of Agrobacterium research. Now, the diverse areas of A. tumefaciens research are again converging because new discoveries in transformation biology and the use of A. tumefaciens vectors are allowing the development of novel, effective biotechnology-based strategies for the control of crown gall disease.
26年前，人们发现常见的土壤细菌根癌农杆菌能够实现跨界基因转移的非凡壮举。自这一发现以来，根癌农杆菌一直作为研究IV型细菌分泌系统、水平基因转移和细菌-植物信号交换的模型系统。它也已被改造用于植物的可控遗传转化，这是植物分子生物学的一项核心技术。这些领域常常掩盖了它作为一种严重的、广泛传播的植物病原体的作用——在根癌农杆菌研究的最初80年里，这是主要驱动力。现在，根癌农杆菌研究的不同领域再次汇聚，因为转化生物学的新发现以及根癌农杆菌载体的使用，使得开发基于生物技术的新型有效策略来控制冠瘿病成为可能。
