Electrotransformation of Agrobacterium

Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Agrobacterium rhizogenes are plant soil-borne pathogens. Plants infected by Agrobacterium develop symptoms of tumor formation or adventitious hairy roots (1 ). These symptoms result from the integration of a fragment of DNA (T-DNA) from the bacterial tumor-inducing (Ti) plasmid into plant genomic DNA (2 ). This unique feature of the transfer of a discrete sequence of DNA from a bacterial plasmid DNA into plant genomic DNA makes Agrobacterium a natural vector for plant researchers to establish transgenic plants (3 ).