Agrobacterium is truly a natural genetic engineer, in that not only does it transform plants to synthesize food (opines) for itself but its DNA can be found even in perfectly normal appearing, uninfected plants. In Seattle, Frank White and colleagues reported that the T-DNA (rol) genes of A. rhizogenes can be readily detected in uninfected N. glauca and many other species of tobacco. It seems most likely that A. rhizogenes infected a Nicotiana plant millions of years ago to form hairy root tumors which then regenerated into normal appearing plants which passed down the conserved sequences to their progency. This observation puts to rest the idea that transgenic plants represent an unnatural phenomenon that only occurs in the laboratory. One can safely bet that the finding of T-DNA in many species of Nicotiana is not an isolated phenomenon limited to this plant.