Use of Tobacco As Model System for Tissue Regeneration in Plants

The regeneration of shoots in vitro and the subsequent formation of whole plants from various plant tissues is an invaluable tool in modern agriculture and crucial for the genetic transformation of plants. However, many crop species are recalcitrant to regeneration, which causes a major obstacle for transgenic improvement of these crop species. A methodical understanding of the molecular events that occur during the process of shoot induction in tissue culture will provide the foundation for increased ability to regenerate recalcitrant species or screen for related species that can be regenerated. To this aim, we are studying the molecular events during the early stages of the process of shoot induction. We are using tobacco as a model system to dissect this process. We exploit conditions that we characterized in tobacco plant leaf segments which display dramatic differences in their ability to induce and regenerate shoots.  We have tobacco plants transformed with various markers of meristem function and other genes of interest. Using these transgenic plant and microarray technology we are studying the molecular events that occur in tobacco tissue during induction of shoot regeneration.