Whole Tissue Electroporation
To avoid the technical difficulties encountered with the manipulation of protoplasts, the introduction of DNA through electroporation of whole tissues has been explored. Attempts to electroporate DNA into completely untreated target tissues have not been reliable. Although seemingly positive results have occasionally been obtained, these have not been consistent. Whole-tissue electroporation is achievable following partial digestion or removal of cell wall material (D'Halluin et al. 1992) using a nominal enzyme treatment. With a reduced or eliminated cell wall, the membrane is exposed and osmotic stabilizers are needed to prevent cell rupture.
Electroporation of treated tissues in the presence of naked DNA causes pore formation and results in the uptake of DNA by the plant cells. Although this approach would seem to offer many advantages over protoplast transformation in the ease of plant recovery from more "intact" tissue, very few valid reports of whole tissue electroporation exist in the literature (D'Halluin et al. 1992).
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