Tobacco

Abstract

January of 1983 was a turning point for plant biotechnology when tobacco was immortalized as a surrogate biological system for testing gene function at a conference on “Advances in Gene Technology: Molecular Genetics of Plants and Animals” hosted by the Miami Winter Symposia series. Although Arabidopsis has now become the system of choice for nuclear gene integration due to the ease of transformation and a short generation cycle, tobacco remains the only established system for plastid transformation. This review summarizes the use of tobacco in dissecting plant biology concepts pertaining to the three important compartments of the cell that harbor genetic material within them. Recent studies in N. benthamiana have brought the genus back to the limelight as an outstanding system for transient protein expression. Overall, this chapter also brings out the advantages and limitations of tobacco as a system for discovery in plant biology. As a nonfood and nonfeed crop tobacco retains a remarkable potential for use as a biofactory. Ironically, this genus with a notorious health reputation may prove to be indispensable for the production of medically relevant compounds.

Comparative chloroplast genomics and phylogenetics of Fagopyrum esculentum ssp. ancestrale – A wild ancestor of cultivated buckwheat

“…Access to the chloroplast genome sequence may highlight other physiologically important traits in buckwheat. In addition, the chloroplast genome sequence can be utilized for developing species specific transformation vectors (for review see [ 13 , 14 ]). Therefore, the knowledge of the nucleotide sequence of buckwheat chloroplast genome opens up an avenue for the application of plastid genetic engineering to this plant.…”