Università di Siena,  Dipartimento Scienze Ambientali 'G.Sarfatti'

Laurea Specialistica in 'Biotecnologie per la Salute Umana' (Classe 9/S), Piante Transgeniche.
Objective
Understanding the molecular basis for plant transformation
To give the student the critical analysis system to understand transgenic plants
To understand the importance and diffusion of transgenic plants for research, pharmaceutical industry and commercial purposes, more in general.

Topics
Brief history of transformation approaches of plant tissues. The protoplast-to-plant system Agrobacterium spp. biology: plant pathology is fundamental for modern transformation of plant tissues.Is horizontal gene transfer a natural phenomenon? Natural selection, genetic breeding and gene transfer. Ti-plasmids and their interactions with plant genome. Tissue transformation and gene expression. The concept of gene integration versus transient expression. Direct transfer of genes into plant tissues. Biolistic, electroporation, microinjection. Tools for genetic transformation. Essential description of the plant gene structure. SARs and other transcrption regulatory factors/elements acting on heterologous gene expression. Molecular structure of vectors used for direct transformation and for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Binary vectors for plant transformation. Regulation of heterologous gene expression (transient gene expression or costitutive).

Bibliography
TRANSGENIC PLANTS E. Galun & A. Breiman Imperial College Press 1998
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER OF PLANT BIOTECHNOLOGY. A.A.  V.V. PM Gresshoff, CRC press1996
GENES VII, Cap. 17° B. Lewin Oxford Press

Dott. Rita Vignani
Dipartimento Scienze Ambientali 'G.Sarfatti'
Via P.A.Mattioli 4
Siena
Tel. 0577232856
fax. 0577232860

E-Mail Vignani@unisi.it

Ultimo aggiornamento -) 10 Ottobre 2003
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