Genetic Transformation for Functional Genomics of Sorghum

Abstract

Plant transformation is an essential requirement for fundamental research in functional biology and for crop improvement. Sorghum is primarily a recalcitrant crop for tissue culture and transformation. It has taken three decades of painstaking optimization efforts to reach a transformation efficiency of 20 and 30 % through particle bombardment and Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation in sorghum, respectively. This chapter describes the different variables that were analyzed for the success of tissue culture and transformation in sorghum. These factors include type of explants, culture media, hormone combinations, methods of gene transfer, vectors, selection marker genes, and so on. Furthermore, efforts for deployment of this technique for sorghum improvement in the area of biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, and improvement of nutritional quality are discussed.