Abstract
The soil bacteria Agrobacterium tumefaciens and A. rhizogenes are the etiological agents of the plant diseases crown gall and hairy root, respectively. They belong to the family of Rhizobiaceae, and thus are related to the nitrogen fixing rhizobia. Whereas crown gall is characterized by the presence of tumors on plants, the hairy root disease is so called because of a conspicuous proliferation of roots from infection sites (Fig. 1). Plant cells in crown galls and hairy roots have two features with which they are distinguished from normal plant cells: 1) they are tumorous i.e. they proliferate in the absence of added growth factors in in vitro culture, and 2) they produce and secrete specific compounds which have been given the generic name of opines. It is now known that these novel properties of crown gall and hairy root cells are a consequence of the presence of a segment of bacterial DNA, the T(ransferred)-DNA within these cells. This bacterial DNA forms part of a large (about 200 kbp) bacterial plasmid which is present in virulent strains of these Agrobacteria, and is known as Ti (tumor inducing) plasmid in the case of A. tumefaciens and Ri (root inducing) plasmid in the case of A. rhizogenes. The T-DNA of the Ti plasmid contains a number of genes which are expressed in the transformed plant cells. Some of these are onc-genes which encode enzymes involved in the production of plant growth regulators, viz. the phytohormones indole acetic acid (an auxin) and isopentenyl-AMP (a cytokinin). Other determine enzymes which catalyze the production of the opines. The presence of these genes in the T-DNA explains the novel properties of crown gall cells. Similarly, the T-DNA of Ri plasmids contains genes called rol genes which confer the capacity to differentiate into roots on transformed cells as well as opine synthase genes. There are several different classes of opines which may be present in the T-DNA transformed plant cells (Fig. 2). This depends entirely on the types of opine synthase genes present on the T-DNA. Opine producing overgrowths form a specific ecological niche for the infecting agrobacteria, since only these can utilize the opines, which are secreted from the tumor cells, for growth. Apparently, agrobacteria are metabolic engineers which apply genetic transformation to force plant cells into producing the required metabolites. For further detailed information on Agrobacterium the reader may consult a number of recent reviews1–4.
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Hooykaas, P.J.J. (2000). Agrobacterium, A Natural Metabolic Engineer of Plants. In: Verpoorte, R., Alfermann, A.W. (eds) Metabolic Engineering of Plant Secondary Metabolism. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9423-3_3
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