Citrus Transformation: Challenges and Prospects

Genetic Improvement of Tropical and Subtropical Fruit Trees via Biolistic Methods

“…The citrus breeding by traditional methods has some limitations including lengthy period of juvenility (8-10 years), polyembryony, incompatibility, parthenocarpy [22,23], and high heterozygosity [24]. Molecular methods and gene transformation could be an alternative for breeding of the citruses and rapid regeneration with less time consumption.…”

“…Currently, gene delivery into the epicotyl segments by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is the most widely used method for gene transformation of the citruses. However, this approach has several drawbacks including the high number of chimeric or non-transformed plants due to the requirement for larger explant and gradient concentrations of the selective agent to the explant [24] and low regeneration frequency of stably transformed cells and recalcitrant of some citrus genotypes to Agrobacterium infection [23]. On the other hand, the biolistic method provides several advantages over Agrobacterium-mediated transformation such as high transformation efficiency, simplicity of the plasmid constructs which allows for the integration of larger inserts, the co-transformation of more than one construct, and less biological damage to the explant [23][24][25].…”

A Review of the Citrus Greening Research and Development Efforts Supported by the Citrus Research and Development Foundation

“…Particle bombardment also has been successful. Factors influencing transformation efficiency include the genotype, age and type of explant, Agrobacterium strain, inoculation procedure, pre-culture conditions and selection regime (Febres et al, 2011). Transformation, which is specific to genus, species, and cultivar , has been successful in relatively few genotypes (Febres et al, 2011;.…”

Recent advances in Citrus psorosis virus

“…Hence, resistance and defence genes isolated from well studied plant species have been successfully incorporated into other species to generate pathogen-resistant plants. Recent advances in genomics in citrus and other species have made available an abundance of genes that can be easily cloned and used in transformation process [17].…”