Screening of plant cell culture collection for efficient host species for Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression

Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression is an approach for short-time expression of heterologous genes in plant systems. During the last decade transient expression was regarded as a potent protocol for high scale production of foreign proteins in plants including pharmaceutically valuable proteins. In vitro grown plant cell cultures represent a suitable system for accumulation of heterologous proteins under controlled conditions. Since host characteristics may strongly influence transient expression efficiency, we performed screening of undifferentiated cell cultures for transient expression ability using GUS as a reporter. Analysis of 248 plant species belonging to 49 families from the National Germplasm Bank of the World Flora of the Institute of Cell Biology and Genetic Engineering (Kyiv, Ukraine) allowed for selection of about 50 plant species exhibiting detectable β-glucuronidase activity.