Silicon Carbide Whiskers
Silicon carbide whiskers are long thin rigid microscopic rods (1 mm wide, 20-30 mm long) that are used in the ceramics industry. They can be used as a vehicle for plant cell transformation when they are added to a mixture of plant cells and DNA and subsequently shaken at high speed (Kaeppler et al. 1990). Although silicon carbide whiskers were originally used with a laboratory vortexer, the back-and-forth motion obtained with a paint can mixer may work as well or better. The basic concept behind this method is to penetrate the plant cell wall with the whiskers, which carry DNA along into the cell. It appears that this penetration occurs as a result of a rod being lodged between cell clusters when they collide during the mixing. An alternate suggestion, that the silicon carbide whiskers act like flying spears to penetrate the cell wall, seems less likely as the mass of the rods is so low. This method has been successfully and consistently used but the mixing treatment is fairly harsh and the target tissues are limited to cell cultures.
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