Hi Thanasis, why wont you use it? It will induce vir gene expression of your Agros and thus lead to higher transformation efficiency. In most stable transformation protocols the plant tissue is cut, the wounding liberates phenolic compounds that act in a similar way. So you do not depend on Acetosyringone. However, you may still improve your protocol by using it and get transformation of the plant cells a bit quicker. In Agro-infiltration you see first transcripts occuring after 16h. This suggests you may reduce the cocultivation time (agros plus plant cells) and start the next step after e.g. 2 days of cocultivation. Many protocols eliminate the Agros at this stage to prevent them from overgrowing your plant tissue. So here is a potential benefit for reducing the incubation time. Hope that answers your question. Cheers Markus

Dear Thanasis

Research on several plant transformations has shown that addition of acetosyringone to Agrobacterium culture had significant improvement of the transformation frequency compared to the Agrobacterium culture without acetosyringone.

If you could induce the virulence (Vir) factors by internal plant factors, such as by wounding the explant tissue. Then there may be no need to add Aceto-Syringone (AS). Why not? for one thing. you sure have to pay for AS and in some region it may not be easy to buy it :-)

However, for certain crops such as monocots, I would suggest to use AS to activate the Agrobacterium Vir factors prior to or during the inoculation/transformation process. Good luck.