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Though conventional breeding techniques are quite excellent and produce significant innovations in tree seedling quality, these technologies are not the most precise methods ArborGen has in its tree improvement portfolio. Through the science and techniques of advanced biotechnology, ArborGen can identify a gene for a desired trait, isolate it from one source and insert that new gene into a tree to add a specific improvement. The process of inserting a new gene into a plant to help it overcome disease or resist stress is called transformation.
ArborGen has had exceptional success with Pine transformation, being one of the first commercial companies to be able to do this successfully. Transformation is facilitated with a bacterial microorganism called Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which is found in the soil but prefers to live inside plants. These bacteria naturally possess the ability to put new DNA into plant chromosomes. We insert specific genes into the bacteria, which are then mixed with small pieces of tree tissue for a few days. Once cells have received the genes, the bacteria are eliminated. The cells are grown in culture, and the cells with added genes are selectively grown further. Those cells are then allowed to grow into shoots. The shoots can then be harvested, rooted and the plant grown.
Often the genetic code that is inserted into the new plant is a regulatory gene, one that simply acts to turn on or turn off a characteristic that already exists in the host plant. For example, in Freeze Tolerant Eucalyptus, the regulator turns on the plant’s existing ability to resist cold. The cold resistance genes are normally turned off in most eucalyptus trees because these trees have adapted to warmer climates over many centuries, and that is where they have excelled. But the genes have remained and are able to function once the activator gene gives them a boost.
At ArborGen, we commonly refer to the specific steps of transformation as biotechnology, and this series of small but critical steps is what can help a broader variety of plant species survive drought, flood, salinity, freeze, and other limiting factors of climate and geography so that a growing population of people will have enough wood, fiber and fuel. |
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