Developing of transgenic wheat cultivars for improved disease resistance

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and (Triticum urgidum L.) are largely cultivated in the world. They are economically important because they can be grown in a wide range of climates and geographic regions. Wheat plants are exposed to a wide variety of disease pathogens i.e. fungal, bacterial and viral pathogens. The present work is an attempt to develop disease resistant wheat cultivars. In this respect, immature embryo derived calli of 2 wheat cultivars; Sids 1 (bread wheat) and Bani Suef 6 (durum wheat) were transformed by rice chitinase (cht 2), gus reporter gene and selectable marker (bar) genes using particle bombardment technique. Transient gus expression in calli and stable gus expression in transformed nodes were observed. Transgenic calli were selected on phosphinothricin containing regeneration medium and putative transformants were grown to maturity. Forty herbicide-resistant putative transformants were selected after leaf painting with 0.2% Liberty herbicide. Presence and integration of transgenes were assessed by subjecting transgenic plants to PCR analysis using specific primers for gus, bar and cht 2 genes. Transformation frequencies for cht 2 were 3.96% and 3.02% in Sids 1 and Bani Suef 6, respectively. The incorporation of rice chitinase gene in transformants was confirmed by Dot-blot analyses.