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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1994 Aug 16;91(17):8000–8004. doi: 10.1073/pnas.91.17.8000

Agrobacterium tumefaciens transfers single-stranded transferred DNA (T-DNA) into the plant cell nucleus.

B Tinland 1, B Hohn 1, H Puchta 1
PMCID: PMC44532  PMID: 11607492

Abstract

Transferred DNA (T-DNA) is transferred as a single-stranded derivative from Agrobacterium to the plant cell nucleus. This conclusion is drawn from experiments exploiting the different properties of single- and double-stranded DNA to perform extrachromosomal homologous recombination in plant cells. After transfer from Agrobacterium to plant cells, T-DNA molecules recombined much more efficiently if the homologous sequences were of opposite polarity than if they were of the same polarity. This observation reflects the properties of single-stranded DNA; single-stranded DNA molecules of opposite polarity can anneal directly, whereas single-stranded DNA molecules of the same polarity first have to become double stranded to anneal. Judging from the relative amounts of single- to double-stranded T-DNA derivatives undergoing recombination, we infer that the T-DNA derivatives enter the plant nucleus in their single-stranded form.

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Selected References

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