Hoyu [death] it is!
Anyway, plant and animal cells alike are capapble of picking up naked DNA
and sticking it into their genomes; for some reason, cells seem to "worry"
if there is a loose piece of DNA lying around, it may be something
important, so they paste it in--often to their disadvantage.
In plants there are structures known as viriods [such as coconut
cadang-cadang viriod]--self replicating, infectious naked RNA molecules
that get into plant cells. I thought they did not integrate into the plant
genome, but potenitally engineered forms of these things may be the basis
of this transfection system.
Gary Gilmore
