Agrobacterium-Mediated Transformation of Potato Genotypes

The potato (Solanum tuberosum ) is the world’s fourth major food crop. The potato is ideally suited for improvement by modern genetic manipulation methods, as it is highly amenable to a wide range of various tissue-culture techniques (1 ). In recent years, a combination of cellular and molecular approaches, including somatic hybridization and genetic transformation, have been employed to improve existing potato cultivars (2 ). Genetic transformation, however, provides a more direct and controlled method for manipulating the genome of potato for both basic and applied research purposes (3 ). This chapter describes the Agrobacterium -mediated transformation method for potato genotypes. Agrobacterium tumefaciens and its Ti-plasmid have been used extensively as vectors to introduce engineered genes into plants (4 ). In order for genetic modification via Agrobacterium to be successful, both a reproducible regeneration system and an efficient DNA delivery system directed toward those cells capable of regeneration are mandatory. An ability to select the transformed cells from a large number of untransformed cells is also essential, because transformation frequency is usually between 5 and 50%.