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SCRI’s state-of-the-art facilities provide a comprehensive resource for plant transformation in Scotland. Our team of researchers work to the highest standards using methods that have been developed by leading scientists throughout the world.

Agrobacterium tumefaciens is the current method of choice for transferring T-DNA constructs into plant tissues. Our team and others have had a high success rate in transforming amenable crops such as Hordeum vulgare c.v. Golden Promise (barley) and Solanum tuberosum c.v. Desiree (potato) with A. tumefaciens. Both barley and potato are important staple foods that grow well in our current Scottish climate.

Barley Transformation

There are 4 stages in the transformation process to produce transgenic plants (see Figure 1). We aim to go from the co-cultivation stage to the production of transformed plantlets within 12 weeks.

Potato Transformation

A variety of tissues can be used for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of potato. We have successfully used internodes, leaf discs, petioles and roots in our experiments. We maintain potato plants in tissue culture and regularly obtain fresh stocks of Desiree from Scottish Agricultural Science Agency (SASA) as needed.