Injecting Edited DNA and Growth-Promoting Bacteria into Pruned Plants Can Produce Gene-Edited and Transgenic Plants Faster

     A new breakthrough in plant biology is the enabling of a new technique to grow transgenic and gene-edited plants that can shorten the process from months to weeks. Normally, a single plant is grown and edited, and grows into a new plant, but it is sometimes not successful. The new technique involves injecting edited DNA and growth-promoting bacteria into a pruned plant. This takes advantage of a plant’s natural ability to regenerate when damaged. Thus, scientists can now begin with actual plant shoots rather than tissue culture. Cassidy Lovell of the Cool Down writes of the potential advantages of faster transgenic and gene-edited plants:

“This innovation could help farmers respond more rapidly to plant diseases or pests that threaten their yields. Invasive pests cause billions of dollars in damage each year, but gene-editing plants could make them more resistant, or even less desirable, to pests.”

“Environmentally, crops could be edited to better withstand rapidly changing climate conditions, like long heat waves or sudden cold snaps. They could even require less water or land, alleviating some strain on resources like water and soil.”

     Cell Press/Phys.org describes the process:

“By injecting bacteria carrying genetic instructions for wound healing and regeneration into a pruned plant's wound site, the researchers triggered the plant to grow new shoots, some of which were transgenic and gene edited.”

     The paper was published in the journal Molecular Plant.

"Plant regeneration has long been a major limitation in crop biotechnology," says senior author and plant genomicist Gunvant Patil of Texas Tech University.

"Our method leverages the plant's inherent regenerative capacity to rapidly produce gene-edited shoots, bypassing months of traditional tissue culture. This innovation has the potential to redefine how we create next-generation, improved crop varieties."    

"You decapitate the plant, you inoculate with Agrobacterium, and then the shoots that grow out of the wound will give rise to seeds that are transgenic or gene-edited," says co-author and plant genomicist Luis Herrera-Estrella of Texas Tech University.

"This technique could help us transform species that are usually very difficult to grow in tissue culture because it's faster and more natural."

     The researchers first tested the technique on tobacco plants, which regenerate readily. They achieved a 35% success rate. Next, they tried it on tomatoes, which are more difficult to regenerate. With tomatoes, they achieved a 21% success rate. The technique was initially unsuccessful in soybeans, which are notoriously difficult to regenerate. However, they were able to achieve success by changing the process a bit. Instead of applying Agrobacterium to pruned shoots, they applied the bacteria to soybean seeds that had been stimulated to germinate. Then they grew the soybeans in tissue culture for 3.5 weeks and were able to successfully grow transgenic shoots 28% of the time.

"With the conventional method, we need to grow soybeans in tissue culture for at least 3 to 4 months, so reducing that time to 3.5 weeks is a huge advancement," says Patil. "This is the first step, and we are now working to fine-tune this technology to apply it to more difficult crops, such as chickpeas, common bean, and many other crops."

     To reiterate, the major advancement of the new technique is the significant speed-up of the process for creating transgenic and gene-edited plants. This should enable the faster development of plants with desirable transgenic or gene-edited traits.

     

 

References:

 

Researchers make incredible breakthrough that could help protect food supply from major threat: 'Has the potential to redefine'. Cassidy Lovell. The Cool Down. February 1, 2026. Researchers make incredible breakthrough that could help protect food supply from major threat: 'Has the potential to redefine'

Growing transgenic plants in weeks instead of months by hijacking a plant's natural regeneration abilities. Cell Press. edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan. Phys.org. November 6, 2025. Growing transgenic plants in weeks instead of months by hijacking a plant's natural regeneration abilities

A synthetic transcription cascade enables direct in planta shoot regeneration for transgenesis and gene editing in multiple plants. Arjun Ojha Kshetry, Kaushik Ghose, Anshu Alok, Vikas Devkar, Vidhyavathi Raman, Robert M. Stupar, Luis Herrera-Estrella, Feng Zhang, and Gunvant B. Patil. Molecular Plant. Volume 18, Issue 12. p2066-2081. December 1, 2025. A synthetic transcription cascade enables direct in planta shoot regeneration for transgenesis and gene editing in multiple plants: Molecular Plant