Engineering plants with microfluidic jet injections
Feeding growing global population requires crops that are more resilient and better adapted to climate changes, leading to better yields. Yet crop breeding is constrained by outdated methods that are slow, species-limited and inefficient. With climate change, increasing pathogen pressure, and reduced yields, there is an urgent need for tools that can deliver genetic material to plant tissues quickly and safely.
Overcoming DNA transformation barriers
Traditional transformation methods suffer from low efficiency, limited species compatibility and poor cell survival. Agrobacterium-mediated transfer(opens in new window) relies on bacteria to deliver new genes but is labour-intensive and restricted to certain crops. Protoplast-based methods(opens in new window) remove the cell wall to enable DNA uptake, but the resulting cells are fragile and often fail to regenerate whole plants. Gene guns(opens in new window) bombard tissues with DNA-coated particles, a broadly applicable but damaging approach that yields low transformation efficiency. The ERC-funded Plant-a-Jet project set out to address this bottleneck with a novel jet-based platform designed to deliver genetic material directly into plant cells with high precision. The team embraces genome editing(opens in new window) as an alternative strategy to plant engineering. This approach uses targeted molecular tools to precisely change specific DNA sequences, enabling controlled and predictable genetic modification.
The ‘BuBble Gun’
Central to the project is the ‘BuBble Gun’, a device that generates ultra-fast liquid jets inside a micro-chip, which was developed by the earlier EU-funded BuBble Gun(opens in new window) project. A laser pulse briefly heats the liquid, forming a microbubble that drives the jet forward. This jet carries DNA or gene-editing proteins into plant tissue, assisted by tiny particles that temporarily open pathways through the cell wall. “Our method operates under normal lab conditions, causes minimal damage and can be scaled simply by creating many jets in parallel,” highlights project coordinator David Fernandez Rivas. This gentle yet powerful delivery mechanism comes as an improvement to gene gun technology that requires bulky equipment. The ‘BuBble Gun’ preserves cell integrity and supports precise targeting, key attributes for genome-editing applications.
Proof-of-concept demonstrations
The plant cell wall remains one of the biggest obstacles in plant biotechnology. Instead of relying on a single strategy, the team combines mechanical penetration from the solvent jet with chemical aids that momentarily soften the wall. This dual approach increases the likelihood of successful entry while keeping tissues viable. Additionally, it may enable transformation of recalcitrant species previously inaccessible to standard methods. Initial experiments demonstrate that the ‘BuBble Gun’ can deliver genetic cargo rapidly and with remarkable precision. Importantly, the cargo reaches its target without degradation. These findings provide strong evidence that the platform can support DNA-free genome editing directly in plant meristems, potentially bypassing the long regeneration phases required by existing technologies.
Next steps
The project now focuses on demonstrating efficiency in several high-value crop species, including those that are notoriously difficult to transform. Parallel work aims to improve throughput, enhance precision, and refine the micro-jet design to support industrial-scale deployment. The potential impact of the Plant-a-Jet is multifold, offering opportunities for faster, more accessible and high-throughput genome editing. “Our approach could help accelerate the development of improved crops and modern strategies for breeding climate-resilient crops,” concludes Fernandez Rivas.
