>-Michael
Agrobacterium transforms most efficiently dicots of multiple different genera.
There is no reason to expect they can't transform Drosera. This is not,
however, something I state lightly. Indeed, the entire process from beginning
to end is likely to take a couple of years. Should prove, if it can work, an
interesting distraction. As to specific genes, see the previous message. For
specifics on the genetics, see Plant Cell back issues, some Nature issues, and
EMBO Journal publishes a lot on such things.
One immediate interest of mine is to transform in tissue culture, say
binata, with a plasmid expressing resistance to the drug kanamycin (plant
cells, if I recall correctly, are killed by kanamycin) and to transform
another Drosera, say prolifera, with a second drug resistance marker (there
are many, let's call it X-omycin). A technique used in both plant and animal
genetics is cell fusion to determine gene function. An additional benefit for
plants is that often one can regenerate the plant from such fusions. The
problem, when one fuses plant protoplasts is 1)regeneration of cell walls, and
2) finding the rare heterokaryon fusion events (two different genotypes fused
ie binata and prolifera). If one selects the fusion mixture in kanamycin plus
the second drug X-omycin, the only thing that can live would be fusions of
binata and prolifera. The next problem would be regenerating the cell wall,
and then regenerating viable plants. What leaf shapes would be dominant in
such a cross-- would they be co-dominant?
Now, this process has been accomplished for several plant species to cross
species that are sterile by normal pollination events. It's likely to be
possible for Drosera as well. My interest would be to cross the more extreme
forms of Drosera (ie regia, capensis, shizandra, prolifera, binata, etc.) to
generate interesting new forms-- the last thing the world needs is another
simple rosette-shaped Drosera species.
Again, I'm not saying I'm going to do this tomorrow. I'm just interested
in starting to collect the information to play around with it over the next
couple of years.
If anybody knows if anything like this has been done or is being done with
Drosera, I'd like to know.
Garry