植物の接ぎ木を利用した接ぎ木相手の形質転換(<特集>新しい遺伝子改変技術と有用植物の育成)

概要

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Grafting is a cultivation method that exploits a cooperative relationship between partner plants possessing different genomes. It is most commonly used for the propagation and cultivation of trees, shrubs, and fruit vegetables. In addition, as represented by florigen (flowering hormone) experiments, grafting has been utilized in the field of plant physiology to clarify the mechanism of long-distance transport by which signals arising in organs that perceive an environmental change are transmitted to response organs. Recent analytical technology has revealed that some specific RNA molecules are also transported through phloem tissue as genetic information to execute coordinated organ growth and development. Therefore, it is anticipated that the RNA transport system could be applied for the improvement of cultivars of various horticultural crops, if the mechanism were controllable by artificial means. We reported here that the mobile siRNAs produced from the hairpin-structure transgene controlled by a companion cell specific promoter can induce the transmissible gene silencing in our grafting system. The epigenetic mutation was maintained through tissue culture and then inherited to the progenies. Our results suggest the potential application using the mobile promoter-targeting siRNAs to improve horticulture plants cultivars by grafting.
2013-12-20