reason behind tobacco its actually quite simple. Nicotiana tabacum and
its subsequent cultivars are fantastic tools for plant transformations.
It grows quickly, agrobacterium loves it (high but not too high
phenolic exudates), but most importantly it regenerates very fast. One
of the big roadblocks to agrobacterium mediated transformations is the
lack of a reliable regeneration system. Even if the agro does a stellar
job at transferring its T-DNA into the wounded plant tissue, if you
can't successfully select for transgenic tissue and then make a
functioning plant out of it what's the point? I managed to get a stable
transformant rooted and happy in 4-5 weeks time. The seeds take a bit
longer to get in comparison to Arabidopsis but the seeds are larger,
easier to handle, and plentiful. The plant is also not so sensitive to
temperature and humidity fluxes as Arabidopsis but will need optimal
conditions for the leaf to be beefy enough for transient expression
experiments like agroinfiltration by injection. My favorite trait is
honestly the seed properties. Its not dust like Arabidopsis. If you
ever worked with the plant and have even slightly longish hair and it
happens to be a dry cold day, static will be your nemesis. The seed
dust clings to everything and is tricky to surface sterilize. With
tobacco I just put a wet paper towel saturated in 70% ethanol in front
of the laminar hood, sprinkle some tobacco seeds on it, remoisten the
towel and allow for the paper to dry. I repeat this once more and I end
up with surface sterilized seeds that have never in my 5+ years of
tissue cultures ended up contaminated. Its just so much more
manageable. Plus the plant gives off a nice aroma (not at all like dry
cured tobacco cigars) and the flowers are pretty. The leaves do get a
bit sticky due to some oil secretions but you win some you lose some.
Either way I really like it as a model organism and can't see myself
switching to Arabi any time in the future. I've developed protocols for
many different species but tobacco is by far the easiest...second only
to the classic African violet.
As for the commercial aspect, I really am not interested in making
tobacco any more desirable. I know too many people especially in my
family whose lives got snuffed out due to chain smoking. I know that's
an extreme example but I'd rather not. Last thing I want is to have the
smokers on my back about being the bad guy (Pro-GMO and "part of the
problem") too.
Im leaning towards expression research so in my quest ill end up with
some pretty fluorescent tobacco plants that I plan to line my shelves
with. A few UV LED strips and Ill be happy. If this whole PEG kit works
ill probably make it use tobacco so everyone can make their own
fluorescent plants. The GFP E. Coli of plant biotech. My dream is that
by the time Im done, people will look at plant engineering (at least in
its simplest form) as trivial. I can already hear the hipsters say they
were transforming plants before it was cool.
:P
PS: enclosed is a picture of one of my grow racks spilling over with
tobacco plants. Its safe to say I need more space. I may remove the
middle shelf and grow from the bottom to the top of the second shelf.
Sebastian S. Cocioba
CEO & Founder
New York Botanics, LLC
Plant Biotech R&D From: Nathan McCorkle
Sent: 2/1/2014 11:19 PM
To: diybio
Subject: Re: [DIYbio] Re: Dwarf tobacco?
On Sat, Feb 1, 2014 at 3:09 AM, Cathal Garvey
<cathalgarvey@cathalgarvey.me> wrote:
> Just remove the nicotine and you'll have my support. Same flavour,
Isn't tobacco's use primarily medicinal? Do people like the flavor that much?
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