Melon (Cucumis melo).

Genetic transformation is an important technique used in plant breeding and to functionally characterize genes of interest. The earliest reports of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation in the melon (Cucumis melo) were from the early 1990s (Fang and Grumet, Plant Cell Rep, 9: 160-164, 1990; Dong et al., Nat Biotechnol 9: 858-863, 1991; Valles and Lasa, Plant Cell Rep 13: 145-148, 1994). These early studies described three problems that decreased the efficiency of transformation: tetraploidy, chimeras, and escape. Using a liquid culture system for somatic embryogenesis, Akasaka-Kenedy et al. (Plant Sci 166: 763-769, 2004) overcame these problems and established an efficient transformation system; the protocol introduced in this chapter is based on this method.