Abstract:
Rose tissues of different varieties were transformed using a Bio-Rad Helios® hand-held
biolistic gun. Parameters for optimum transient expression were optimized and included rose
variety, flower age, tissue, gold particle size, DNA loading ratio. Smooth flowers without
thick waxy layers and young unopened actively growing flowers were found to be better
suited for the transient expression assays. The DNA amounts, gold particle amounts and size
etc were not found to influence the efficiency of the transient transformation in these tissues.
These studies indicate that biolistic transformation using hand-held guns can be used for
successful transient expression assays in rose flower tissues. This is especially useful for a
quick and easy analysis of genes and their expression before attempting stable
transformation.
