Plant Plasmids and Resources
Background
Addgene’s repository contains many plasmid tools that were specifically designed for use in plants. These resources include tools for research using plant systems such as Arabidopsis, wheat, maize, rice, tomato, and a variety of other species. In addition to individual plasmids, Addgene carries several useful toolkits and plasmid collections for use in plants.
The tables below highlight plasmids spanning a wide variety of molecular biology technologies: from genome engineering and gene regulation to fluorescent proteins. Addgene’s collection includes plasmids containing promoters that drive general and species-specific gene expression (see the column ‘promoter’ in the tables for species-specific tools).
Support open science in plant biology - deposit plant plasmids with Addgene!
CRISPR
Please refer to Addgene's CRISPR Guide for a general introduction to CRISPR technology or the Plant CRISPR Resources for a full selection of plasmids expressing different functional variants of Cas9 and empty gRNA backbones.
A few examples of useful plant CRISPR resources include:
- A Multipurpose Toolkit enables targeted, specific modification of monocot and dicot genomes using genome engineering; validated in tomato, tobacco, M. truncatula, wheat, and barley - Daniel Voytas.
- A CRISPR/Cas9 Toolkit for use in a variety of plant species (e.g. maize and Arabidopsis) and vectors for easy assembly of one or more gRNA expression cassettes - Qi-Jun Chen.
- Cas9 and gRNA backbone for use in rice. Includes a protocol (Link opens in a new window) for Targeted Gene Mutation in Rice - Yinong Yang.
- The MoClo CRISPR/Cas Toolkit for Plants includes CRISPR/Cas nucleases, base editors, gRNA backbones, and promoters for expression in monocots and dicots - Vladimir Nekrasov.
- The MoClo-compatible zCas9i Cloning Kit includes a high efficiency intron-optimized SpCas9-coding gene, zCas9i, and an intronized Cas9 series of vectors and DNA modules for assembly of CRISPR/Cas9 constructs - Sylvestre Marillonnet and Johannes Stuttmann.
- Combined fluorescent seed selection and multiplex CRISPR/Cas9 assembly for fast generation of multiple Arabidopsis mutants - Niko Geldner.
- CRISPR-Cas9 vector with GRF4-GIF1 for wheat and other monocots - Jorge Dubcovsky.
- Engineered biocontainable RNA virus vectors for non-transgenic genome editing across crop species and genotypes - Zhenghe Li.
- A robust CRISPR/Cas9 system for convenient, high-efficiency multiplex genome editing in monocot and dicot plants - Yao-Guang Liu.
- Plasmids for prime editing in plants (including rice and wheat) - Caixia Gao.
Cloning
The following collections are designed for creating plant expression vectors:
- A modular plasmid assembly kit for multigene expression, gene silencing, and silencing rescue in plants - Martin Parniske.
- GreenGate Cloning System to create plant expression vectors containing several cassettes and generate multi-construct transgenic plants - Jan Lohmann.
- MoClo Plant Parts II and Infrastructure Kit for hierarchical assembly of plant multigene constructs - Johannes Stuttmann.
- MoChlo: Modular Cloning Chloroplast Toolbox for design of synthetic operons for chloroplast transformation and metabolic engineering in plants (including tobacco and potato) - Scott Lenaghan.
- Joint Modular Cloning (JMC) Toolkit includes a modular cloning chassis and set of functional parts for assembling plant transformation vectors - Daniel Voytas.
Transcription Factors
The following collections can be used for studying gene expression in plants:
- Maize Transcription Factor ORFeome - John Gray.
- Rice Transcription Factor ORFeome - John Gray.
- Plant transcription factors for Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression or plant transformation - Silin Zhong.
RNAi
The following collections are designed for gene silencing in plants:
- microRNAs in Arabidopsis - Detlef Weigel.
- microRNAs in rice - Detlef Weigel.
- microRNA and siRNA vectors in Arabidopsis - James Carrington.
- JoinTRV, an improved vector system based on tobacco rattle virus (TRV) that simplifies gene silencing and genome editing logistics - Jose-Antonio Daros.
Empty Backbones
The table below highlights plasmids that can be used as empty backbones for your gene of interest for expression in plants. You can search the table for features you are looking for, such as the promoter or cloning method of choice.
ID | Plasmid | Description | Promoter | Cloning Method | PI |
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Fluorescent Proteins
The table below highlights plasmids that feature fluorescent or luminescent proteins for expression in plants. You can search the table for features you are looking for, such as the promoter or fluorescent protein of choice.
ID | Plasmid | Description | Promoter | PI |
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Other Resources
Addgene Blog Posts
- RUBY-Red Siliques
- CRISPR-mediated Plant Base Editors
- Save Time with Transient Plant Leaf Transformations
- RNA Interference in Plant Biology: New Tools for an Old Favorite
External Resources
- Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center (ABRC) (Link opens in a new window)- The ABRC collects, preserves, reproduces, and distributes diverse seed and other stocks of Arabidopsis thaliana and related species.
- The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) (Link opens in a new window)- TAIR includes a database of genetic and molecular biology data for Arabidopsis thaliana research.
- BAR The Bio-Analytic Resource for Plant Biology (Link opens in a new window)- Tools for gene and protein expression and mapping of gene expression in plants.
- Figshare - Plant Illustrations (Link opens in a new window)- Collection of illustrations and pictures of plants, roots, shoots, and inflorescences - a growing resource for the plant science community.
- Grassius (Link opens in a new window)- a public web resource composed by a collection of databases, computational and experimental resources that relate to the control of gene expression in the grasses.
- OpenPlant Synthetic Biology Research Centre (Link opens in a new window)- The initiative promotes interdisciplinary exchange, open technologies, and responsible innovation for improvement of sustainable agriculture and conservation.
- Medicinal Plant Genomics Resource (Link opens in a new window)- Transcriptomic and metabolomic resources for 14 key medicinal plants for the advancement of drug production and development.
- The TapRoot - Podcast (Link opens in a new window)- The Taproot is a podcast to understand how scientific publications are created. Papers from the plant biology literature are discussed with one of the authors. The podcast is produced by Plantae (Link opens in a new window).
- TraVa (Link opens in a new window)- Database of gene expression profiles in Arabidopsis thaliana based on RNA-seq analysis.
Do you have suggestions for other plasmids that should be added to this list?
Fill out our Suggest a Plasmid form or e-mail [email protected] to help us improve this resource!