Progress in Genetic Manipulation of the Brassicaceae

With the increasing advances in Brassicaceae genetics and genomics, considerable progress has been made in the transformation of Brassicaceae. Transformation technologies are now being exploited routinely to determine the gene function and contribute to the development of novel enhanced crops. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation remains the most widely used approach for the introduction of transgenes into Brassicaceae. In Brassica, the transformation relies mainly on in vitro transformation methods. Nevertheless, despite the significant progress made towards enhancing the transformation efficiencies, some genotypes remain recalcitrant to transformation. Advances in our understanding of the genetics behind various transformations have enabled researchers to identify more readily transformable genotypes for use in routine high-throughput systems. These developments have opened up exciting new avenues to exploit model Brassica genotypes as resources for understanding the gene function in complex genomes. Although many other Brassicaceae have served as model species for improving plant transformation systems, this paper summarizes on the recent technologies employed in the transformation of both Arabidopsis and Brassica. The use of transformation technologies for the introduction of desirable traits and a comparative analysis of these as well as their future prospects are also important parts of the current research that is reviewed.