Pineapple is the second most important fruit crop next to banana. Besides
its economic benefits, it is also a model species for Crassulacean acid
metabolism pathway of photosynthesis in plants. An available genetic
transformation method is required to further improve and study this plant.
However, Agrobacterium-mediated transformation in pineapple suffer from low
success rate, requiring researchers to find other ways to genetically modify
this crop.



Researcher Yuan Chin from Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in
China and colleagues developed a simple protoplast isolation method that can
be used for genetic transformation of pineapple. The protoplasts were
isolated from cultured pineapple leaves. They tested the isolated protoplast
for transient expression of proteins AtJAZ3 and AtMYC2 through PEG-mediated
transformation. Results showed suitability of the method for studying
protein localization and interaction. The researchers concluded that this
method can also be used with genomic sequencing data to study molecular
control of pineapple plant growth.

[plantmethods.biomedcentral.com]