The integration of T-DNA into plant genomes

The last decade's blooming of research in plant molecular biology and plant biotechnology was tightly coupled to the discovery of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of plants. Agrobacterium is a common lab tool for many plant molecular biologists, because it has evolved the unique capacity to transfer a piece of its own DNA - the T-DNA (transferred DNA) - into the nuclear genome of plant cells, This property has been extremely useful for the introduction of new genes into plants (either for research or applied purposes), and for the inactivation of plant genes by insertion mutagenesis. Also, the interaction between Agrobacterium and the plant cell itself has provided powerful tools for directly addressing questions in plant biology. This is especially true in the field of genetic recombination, because the characteristics of T-DNA-mediated transformation have no known equivalent in any other eukaryotic system.