Cucurbitaceae crops, including cucumber, pumpkin, balsam pear, loofah, gourd, watermelon, melon, etc., are important fruits and melons. Grafting is an ancient agricultural technique with a long history and is still widely used in horticultural crop production today. Cucurbitaceae crops are also good models for studying long-distance signals above and below ground due to their easy grafting, easy access to Xylem and phloem fluid and other characteristics. Therefore, it is particularly important to develop a functional verification system of related genes suitable for Cucurbitaceae plants.

 

The study of Huazhong Agricultural University used Agrobacterium to infect explants with growth points. First, they established a hair root system suitable for Cucurbitaceae crops, and the efficiency in pumpkin can reach 84%. This system is also suitable for Cucurbitaceae crops such as cucumber, melon, loofah and gourd. In addition, researchers have combined the method of rooting system with grafting methods to achieve genetic modification of rootstocks while rooting.

 

In this study, a root transient transformation system suitable for different grafting combinations of Cucurbitaceae was established, and it was successfully applied to functional verification of salt tolerant genes in cucurbits, providing an effective method for studying the function of root genes and the interaction between rootstocks and scions of Cucurbitaceae crops.