The Transformation of Rubus and Its Application to the Study of Plant Secondary Metabolites in Plant and Animal Cells

Transformation is the genetic alteration of a cell resulting from the uptake and expression of foreign genetic material.  The ability to perform transformation is a technique that has yet to be accomplished in blackberry.  To this end we use Agrobacterium-mediated transformation techniques to transform the blackberry  (Rubus spp) in tissue culture.  A vector containing a GFP reporter gene was used to produce transgenic tissue.  Results thus far have revealed the successful transformation of blackberry callus and studies are ongoing.  We intend to use this system to aid in the study of secondary metabolites in Rubus.  Plant secondary metabolites provide many leads for new therapeutics in humans, however, their mechanisms of action are often not understood in either plants or animals.  We hypothesize that phenolics may represent a class of plant hormones that activate developmentally-regulated signal transduction pathways that initiate or suppress cell division by mimicking small ligands.  The results from this study will define the physiological role of certain phenolics in plant and mammalian cells, and potentially provide mechanisms of action for the therapeutic effects of some plant based therapeutics.