title: Advancing Crop Transformation in the Era of Genome Editing.
abstract: Plant transformation has enabled fundamental insights into plant biology and revolutionized commercial agriculture. Unfortunately, for most crops, transformation and regeneration remain arduous even after more than 30 years of technological advances. Genome editing provides novel opportunities to enhance crop productivity but relies on genetic transformation and plant regeneration, which are bottlenecks in the process. Here, we review the state of plant transformation and point to innovations needed to enable genome editing in crops. Plant tissue culture methods need optimization and simplification for efficiency and minimization of time in culture. Currently, specialized facilities exist for crop transformation. Single-cell and robotic techniques should be developed for high-throughput genomic screens. Plant genes involved in developmental reprogramming, wound response, and/or homologous recombination should be used to boost the recovery of transformed plants. Engineering universal Agrobacterium tumefaciens strains and recruiting other microbes, such as Ensifer or Rhizobium, could facilitate delivery of DNA and proteins into plant cells. Synthetic biology should be employed for de novo design of transformation systems. Genome editing is a potential game-changer in crop genetics when plant transformation systems are optimized.
authors.affiliation: Agronomy Department, Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Program, University of Florida, IFAS, Gainesville, Florida 32611.
authors.forename: Fredy
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-0894-4976
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Altpeter
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Biology, Microbial and Plant Genomics Institute, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108.
authors.forename: Nathan M
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7301-4759
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Springer
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019.
authors.forename: Laura E
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8610-7551
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Bartley
authors.affiliation: U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agriculture Research Service, Western Regional Research Center, Albany, California 94710.
authors.forename: Ann E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Blechl
authors.affiliation: Enterprise Institute for Renewable Fuels, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, Missouri 63132.
authors.forename: Thomas P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Brutnell
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794.
authors.forename: Vitaly
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-2024-6844
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Citovsky
authors.affiliation: Natural Sciences Collegium, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida 33711.
authors.forename: Liza J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Conrad
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907.
authors.forename: Stanton B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Gelvin
authors.affiliation: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York 11724.
authors.forename: David P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.affiliation: Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island 02881.
authors.forename: Albert P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Kausch
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720.
authors.forename: Peggy G
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Lemaux
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523.
authors.forename: June I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Medford
authors.affiliation: Plant Transformation Research Center, University of California, Riverside, California 92521.
authors.forename: Martha L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Orozco-Cárdenas
authors.affiliation: Plant Transformation Facility, University of California, Davis, California 95616.
authors.forename: David M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Tricoli
authors.affiliation: The Boyce Thompson Institute, Ithaca, New York 14853.
authors.forename: Joyce
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Van Eck
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development and Center for Genome Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455.
authors.forename: Daniel F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Voytas
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305.
authors.forename: Virginia
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1596-7279
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Walbot
authors.affiliation: Department of Agronomy and Center for Plant Transformation, Plant Sciences Institute, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011.
authors.forename: Kan
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-2474-5800
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Plant Transformation Core Facility, Division of Plant Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211.
authors.forename: Zhanyuan J
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-9666-165X
authors.initials: ZJ
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996 nealstewart@utk.edu.
authors.forename: C Neal
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3026-9193
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Stewart
mesh_terms: D016960:Agrobacterium tumefaciens / Q000235:genetics; D018556:Crops, Agricultural / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D018744:DNA, Plant / Q000235:genetics; D000072669:Gene Editing; D018745:Genome, Plant / Q000235:genetics*; D011995:Recombination, Genetic / Q000235:genetics; D014170:Transformation, Genetic / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D018744:DNA, Plant