Department of Applied Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria.
PLoS One. 2013 Sep 10;8(9):e73355. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0073355. eCollection 2013.
Transient expression systems are valuable tools in molecular biology. Agrobacterial infiltration of leaves is well-established in tobacco, but has led to limited success in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. An efficient expression system combining the advantages of Arabidopsis (well-characterised) and the simplicity of leaf infiltration is desirable. Here, I describe Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation of Tropaeolummajus (nasturtium, order Brassicales) as a remarkably simple, cheap and highly efficient transient expression system. It provides the Arabidopsis community with a tool to study subcellular localisation, protein-protein interactions and reporter gene activities (e.g. luciferase, β-glucuronidase) in a genetic background that is closely related to their primary model organism. Unlike Arabidopsis, Tropaeolum is capable of engaging in endomycorrhizal associations and is therefore relevant also to symbiosis research. RNAi-based approaches are more likely to succeed than in the distantly-related Nicotiana transformation system. Tropaeolummajus was voted the "medicinal plant of the year 2013". Conquering this plant for genetic manipulations harbours potential for biotechnological and pharmacological applications.
瞬时表达系统是分子生物学中非常有用的工具。农杆菌介导的叶片渗透在烟草中已经得到很好的建立，但在模式植物拟南芥中却导致了有限的成功。一个结合了拟南芥（特征良好）和叶片渗透简单性的高效表达系统是理想的。在这里，我描述了根癌农杆菌介导的nasturtium（nasturtium，Brassicales 目）转化，这是一种非常简单、廉价和高效的瞬时表达系统。它为拟南芥社区提供了一个工具，可以在与其主要模式生物密切相关的遗传背景下研究亚细胞定位、蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用和报告基因活性（例如荧光素酶、β-葡萄糖醛酸酶）。与拟南芥不同，nasturtium 能够进行内共生关联，因此也与共生研究相关。基于 RNAi 的方法比在亲缘关系较远的 Nicotiana 转化系统中更有可能成功。nasturtium 被选为 2013 年“药用植物”。征服这种植物进行遗传操作具有生物技术和药理学应用的潜力。
