Chapter 4
Non-sterile Grafting Methods for Arabidopsis
Nien-Chen Huang and Tien-Shin Yu
Abstract
Mobile signals play pivotal roles in coordinating interorgan communication. Grafting provides an effective
strategy to identify and explore the movement of the mobile signals. The mutant collection of Arabidopsis
offers background-free living materials for examining the transport of mobile signals in vivo. In the past few
years, many grafting methods have been developed to overcome the limitations of rosette-type growth and
small size in Arabidopsis. Here we describe a non-sterile grafting method involving an insect pin to secure
the scion to the rootstock. The scions can be grafted onto epicotyls or hypocotyls of soil-grown Arabidopsis
rootstocks at a wide range of developmental stages. This grafting method provides a useful tool to analyze
leaf-derived mobile signals in Arabidopsis.
Key words Mobile signals, Pin-fasten grafting, Scion, Rootstock, Arabidopsis
1 Introduction
Grafting is an ancient horticultural technique that has been developed to maintain agricultural-important traits or improve the
growth vigor of cultivars with high economic value [1]. In grafting,
the meristem-containing stems, termed scions, are severed from
plants with valuable traits and manually secured to root-containing
plants, termed rootstocks, derived from the same or different but
closely related species. Once the attached tissues adhere and the
vasculature reconnects across the graft junction, the chimeric plants
are considered successfully grafted. As the grafted plants grow, the
scions gradually develop and occupy most of the chimeric plants;
the traits of scions are usually maintained after grafting. However,
because rootstocks provide physical support and nutrients or signals for development of the scions, the growth behavior of scions is
sometimes affected after grafting [2, 3]. Thus, grafting also provides an effective approach to investigate long-distance movement
of mobile signals.
The abundant mutant collection of Arabidopsis provides an
ideal system to examine mobile signals by using grafting
Jose J. Sanchez-Serrano and Julio Salinas (eds.), Arabidopsis Protocols, Methods in Molecular Biology, vol. 2200,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0880-7_4, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021
113
Non-sterile Grafting Methods for Arabidopsis
Nien-Chen Huang and Tien-Shin Yu
Abstract
Mobile signals play pivotal roles in coordinating interorgan communication. Grafting provides an effective
strategy to identify and explore the movement of the mobile signals. The mutant collection of Arabidopsis
offers background-free living materials for examining the transport of mobile signals in vivo. In the past few
years, many grafting methods have been developed to overcome the limitations of rosette-type growth and
small size in Arabidopsis. Here we describe a non-sterile grafting method involving an insect pin to secure
the scion to the rootstock. The scions can be grafted onto epicotyls or hypocotyls of soil-grown Arabidopsis
rootstocks at a wide range of developmental stages. This grafting method provides a useful tool to analyze
leaf-derived mobile signals in Arabidopsis.
Key words Mobile signals, Pin-fasten grafting, Scion, Rootstock, Arabidopsis
1 Introduction
Grafting is an ancient horticultural technique that has been developed to maintain agricultural-important traits or improve the
growth vigor of cultivars with high economic value [1]. In grafting,
the meristem-containing stems, termed scions, are severed from
plants with valuable traits and manually secured to root-containing
plants, termed rootstocks, derived from the same or different but
closely related species. Once the attached tissues adhere and the
vasculature reconnects across the graft junction, the chimeric plants
are considered successfully grafted. As the grafted plants grow, the
scions gradually develop and occupy most of the chimeric plants;
the traits of scions are usually maintained after grafting. However,
because rootstocks provide physical support and nutrients or signals for development of the scions, the growth behavior of scions is
sometimes affected after grafting [2, 3]. Thus, grafting also provides an effective approach to investigate long-distance movement
of mobile signals.
The abundant mutant collection of Arabidopsis provides an
ideal system to examine mobile signals by using grafting
Jose J. Sanchez-Serrano and Julio Salinas (eds.), Arabidopsis Protocols, Methods in Molecular Biology, vol. 2200,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0880-7_4, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021
113