Genome editing of cannabis (C. sativa L.) protoplasts is an important tool for achieving the production of desired secondary metabolites. The aim of our study was to establish an efficient protocol for the isolation and transformation of cannabis protoplasts while evaluating the influence of various factors. We compared the use of different cannabis genotypes, cultivation methods of the selected plant tissue, and enzymolysis conditions. By optimizing these parameters, we successfully isolated between 2.0*10⁶ and 1.2*10⁷ protoplasts per 1 gram of plant material with a viability ranging from 65 % to 75 %, which is higher than that reported by other researchers who isolated protoplast from cannabis and by studies on some other plant species. In the transformation protocol, we investigated the effect of plasmid and PEG concentrations on protoplast viability, as well as the effect of protoplast treatment duration on transformation efficiency. We found that neither the plasmid nor PEG had a negative effect on protoplast viability. Due to the occurrence of protoplast autofluorescence, qPCR analysis of gfp gene expression was performed to determine transformation efficiency. The results showed that the transformation was successful, as increased expression of the gfp gene was detected in all samples compared to the control, while treatment duration had no effect on transformation efficiency.
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