Plant Biotechnology

Project Description

Wheat is staple food and important source of energy and nutrition for mankind. However wheat is suffering major yield losses due to various biotic and abiotic stresses. Worldwide food problem drew the attention of scientists to develop new methods for improving genetic makeup of plants. Various methods are available to produce transgenic plants; plants with desired characters and of approved quality. Amongst these, two methods are most widely used; the Agrobacterium-mediated and microparticle bombardment methods. The Agrobacterium-mediated transformation method has several advantages over the microparticle bombardment method. The former method results in more stable integration of a defined segment of DNA into the plant genome, lower copy number and fewer rearrangements in plant genome. Although Agrobacterium-mediated cereal transformation via tissue culture brought some success but it involves several limitations; it requires sterile conditions and is time-consuming. Moreover, the tissue culture approach causes somaclonal variation due to either epigenetic effects or chromosomal rearrangements. Many cereal crops including wheat have been successfully transformed through Agrobacterium-mediated method. But still transformation of wheat lag far behind than rice and maize due to problems of regeneration of some varieties .To overcome this sort of problems in planta transformation method has been introduced, through which intact plants are transformed and there is no need of in vitro culturing. In this method soaked seeds of plants are pricked with a needle inoculated in Agrobacterium solution. The inoculated seeds are allowed to mature into seedlings and transferred to plant pots and exposed to natural environment rather than controlled conditions and allowed to pollinate freely. As wheat is an important crop, our aim is to transform local wheat varieties with this simple in planta transformation method. This approach will provide an alternative way for genetic improvement of the varieties having low efficiency of regeneration and hence difficult to transform through tissue culture technique.

 

Project Funding

Sr. No.Funding BodyFunds
1 ORIC, CUI Islamabad 0.2 Million Rupee

Members

  • Dr. Jamshaid  Hussain