15
Transformation Development
in Duckweeds
Jingjing Yang, Shiqi Hu, Gaojie Li, Suliman Khan,
Sunjeet Kumar, Lunguang Yao, Pengfei Duan
and Hongwei Hou
Abstract
There are five genera (Spirodela, Landoltia,
Lemna, Wolffiella and Wolffia) of duckweed
species widely distributed in various freshwater habitats worldwide. Rapid growth rate,
predominantly asexual reproduction and floating growth made them ideal for a plant model.
The sensitivity to some toxicants and enrichment capacity also made duckweeds favorable
in biomonitoring and bioremediation in contaminated water. Furthermore, duckweeds
have increasingly been considered as alternative sources for bioenergy and food, due to
their high biomass accumulation rate and
nutritional contents. Both stable and transient
transformation protocols have been established for some duckweed species. Agrobacterium-mediated method is the main approach
in duckweeds genetic transformation, which
could be affected by the type of explants,
Agrobacterium strains, their densities,
co-culture conditions and antibiotics and their
concentrations. Particle treatment and other
improvements such as vacuum infiltration can
accelerate transient transformation efficiency
by microprojectile bombardment method.
Inadequacies are still present in genetic transformation of some duckweed species including low efficiency of transformation and
long-time period especially using calli as
infected materials. Therefore, more concentrated and persistent efforts to develop efficient
approaches for genetic transformation of
duckweeds are still needed. Furthermore, it
is necessary to make an effort to express
various types of genes so as to expand the
development and utilization of duckweeds.
J. Yang Á S. Hu Á G. Li Á S. Khan Á S. Kumar Á
H. Hou (&)
The State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology
and Biotechnology, The Key Laboratory of Aquatic
Biodiversity and Conservation of Chinese Academy
of Sciences, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, Hubei,
People’s Republic of China
e-mail: houhw@ihb.ac.cn
L. Yao Á P. Duan
Collaborative Innovation Center of Water Security
for Water Source Region of Mid-Line of
South-to-North Diversion Project, Henan Province,
Nanyang Normal University, Nanyang, China
Key Laboratory of Ecological Security for Water
Source Region of Mid-Line of South-to-North
Diversion Project of Henan Province, Nanyang
Normal University, Nanyang, China
College of Agricultural Engineering, Nanyang
Normal University, Nanyang, China
J. Yang Á S. Hu Á G. Li Á S. Kumar Á H. Hou
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing
100049, People’s Republic of China
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
X. H. Cao et al. (eds.), The Duckweed Genomes, Compendium of Plant Genomes,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11045-1_15
143
Transformation Development
in Duckweeds
Jingjing Yang, Shiqi Hu, Gaojie Li, Suliman Khan,
Sunjeet Kumar, Lunguang Yao, Pengfei Duan
and Hongwei Hou
Abstract
There are five genera (Spirodela, Landoltia,
Lemna, Wolffiella and Wolffia) of duckweed
species widely distributed in various freshwater habitats worldwide. Rapid growth rate,
predominantly asexual reproduction and floating growth made them ideal for a plant model.
The sensitivity to some toxicants and enrichment capacity also made duckweeds favorable
in biomonitoring and bioremediation in contaminated water. Furthermore, duckweeds
have increasingly been considered as alternative sources for bioenergy and food, due to
their high biomass accumulation rate and
nutritional contents. Both stable and transient
transformation protocols have been established for some duckweed species. Agrobacterium-mediated method is the main approach
in duckweeds genetic transformation, which
could be affected by the type of explants,
Agrobacterium strains, their densities,
co-culture conditions and antibiotics and their
concentrations. Particle treatment and other
improvements such as vacuum infiltration can
accelerate transient transformation efficiency
by microprojectile bombardment method.
Inadequacies are still present in genetic transformation of some duckweed species including low efficiency of transformation and
long-time period especially using calli as
infected materials. Therefore, more concentrated and persistent efforts to develop efficient
approaches for genetic transformation of
duckweeds are still needed. Furthermore, it
is necessary to make an effort to express
various types of genes so as to expand the
development and utilization of duckweeds.
J. Yang Á S. Hu Á G. Li Á S. Khan Á S. Kumar Á
H. Hou (&)
The State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology
and Biotechnology, The Key Laboratory of Aquatic
Biodiversity and Conservation of Chinese Academy
of Sciences, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, Hubei,
People’s Republic of China
e-mail: houhw@ihb.ac.cn
L. Yao Á P. Duan
Collaborative Innovation Center of Water Security
for Water Source Region of Mid-Line of
South-to-North Diversion Project, Henan Province,
Nanyang Normal University, Nanyang, China
Key Laboratory of Ecological Security for Water
Source Region of Mid-Line of South-to-North
Diversion Project of Henan Province, Nanyang
Normal University, Nanyang, China
College of Agricultural Engineering, Nanyang
Normal University, Nanyang, China
J. Yang Á S. Hu Á G. Li Á S. Kumar Á H. Hou
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing
100049, People’s Republic of China
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
X. H. Cao et al. (eds.), The Duckweed Genomes, Compendium of Plant Genomes,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11045-1_15
143