With an increasing human population and a decreasing amount of arable land, creative improvements in agriculture will be a necessity in the coming decades to maintain or improve the standard of living. In Plant Chromosome Engineering: Methods and Protocols, expert researchers present techniques for the modification of crops and other plant species in order to achieve the goal of developing the much needed novel approaches to the production of food, feed, fuel, fiber, and pharmaceuticals. This volume examines vital topics such as transformation procedures, chromosome painting, production of engineered minichromosomes, gene targeting and mutagenesis, site specific integration, gene silencing, protein expression, chromosome sorting and analysis, protocols for generating chromosomal rearrangements, enhancer trapping, and means of studying chromosomes in vivo. As a part of the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology¿ series, the methodological chapters include brief introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and professional tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.
Authoritative and cutting-edge, Plant Chromosome Engineering: Methods and Protocols highlights the spectrum of tools currently available for modifying plant genomes and chromosomes and provides the foundation for crucial future developments.

1. Recent Advances in Plant Transformation
Shyamkumar Barampuram and Zhanyuan J. Zhang
2. Engineering the Plastid Genome of Nicotiana sylvestris, a Diploid Model Species for Plastid Genetics
Pal Maliga and Zora Svab
3. Homologous Recombination in Plants: An Anti-Review
Michal Lieberman-Lazarovich and Avraham A. Levy
4. Chromosome Painting for Plant Biotechnology
Akio Kato, Jonathan C. Lamb, Patrice S. Albert, Tatiana Danilova, Fangpu Han, Zhi Gao, Seth Findley, and James A. Birchler
5. Plant B Chromosomes
Andreas Houben, Shuhei Nasuda, and Takashi R. Endo
6. Telomere Truncation in Plants
Chunhui Xu and Weichang Yu
7. Engineered Plant Minichromosomes
Robert T. Gaeta and Lakshminarasimhan Krishnaswamy
8. Method for Bxb1-Mediated Site-Specific Integration In planta
Yuan-Yeu Yau, Yueju Wang, James G. Thomson, and David W. Ow
9. Targeted Mutagenesis in Arabidopsis Using Zinc Finger Nucleases
Feng Zhang and Daniel F. Voytas
10. Vectors and Methods for Hairpin RNA and Artificial microRNA-Mediated Gene Silencing in Plants
Andrew L. Eamens and Peter M. Waterhouse
11. Recombinant Protein Expression in Nicotiana
Nobuyuki Matoba, Keith R. Davis, and Kenneth E. Palmer
12. Chromosome Analysis and Sorting Using Flow Cytometry
Jaroslav Doležel, Marie Kubaláková, Jarmila ¿íhalíková, Pavla Suchánková, and Hana Šimková
13. Super-Stretched Pachytene Chromosomes for Plant Molecular Cytogenetic Mapping
Dal-Hoe Koo and Jiming Jiang
14. Cytological Dissection of the Triticeae Chromosomes by the Gametocidal System
Takashi R. Endo
15. Development and Use of Oat-Maize Chromosome Additions and Radiation Hybrids
Ralf G. Kynast and Oscar Riera-Lizarazu
16. Enhancer Trapping in Plants
Sivanandan Chudalayandi
17. Chromatin Beacons: Global Sampling of Chromatin Physical Properties Using Chromatin Charting Lines
Aniça Amini, Chongyuan Luo, and Eric Lam
18. Transposable Elements as Catalysts for Chromosome Rearrangements
Jianbo Zhang, Chuanhe Yu, Lakshminarasimhan Krishnaswamy, and Thomas Peterson