Tomato productivity has always been constrained because of abiotic stresses.
Transgenic tomatoes are presently being developed to minimize these losses
due to abiotic stresses. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is the most
common approach to producing transgenic tomato. However, the effectiveness
of the present methods were limited to only a few tomato cultivars. Hence,
we still need an appropriate, simple and general procedure effective across
all cultivars. Wounding methods, such as puncturing with a syringe needle,
may just be the answer.

Using Indian tomato hypocotyl explants, the efficiencies of the
punctured-hypocotyl method as well as normal immersion method of
Agrobacterium-mediated transformation were compared. All factors influencing
transformation efficiency, such as Agrobacterium density and co-cultivation
time, were optimized. The transgene integration of the tomato genome was
confirmed by PCR and Southern hybridization. Transformation efficiency was
found to be greater with the punctured-hypocotyl method compared to the
normal immersion method.

This newly developed method is simple, efficient and could be used to
transfer important agronomic genes into the tomato genome for the potential
improvement in terms of quality and quantity.

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