Non-sterile Grafting Methods for Arabidopsis

Mobile signals play pivotal roles in coordinating interorgan communication. Grafting provides an effective strategy to identify and explore the movement of the mobile signals. The mutant collection of Arabidopsis offers background-free living materials for examining the transport of mobile signals in vivo. In the past few years, many grafting methods have been developed to overcome the limitations of rosette-type growth and small size in Arabidopsis. Here we describe a non-sterile grafting method involving an insect pin to secure the scion to the rootstock. The scions can be grafted onto epicotyls or hypocotyls of soil-grown Arabidopsis rootstocks at a wide range of developmental stages. This grafting method provides a useful tool to analyze leaf-derived mobile signals in Arabidopsis.