Development of Transgenic Barley
with Improved Tolerance
to Abiotic Stresses

Expanding the agricultural land base to the drier, less arable land in Egypt, "especially the North-West Coastal (NWC) region" is becoming a necessity to meet the food demands of the growing population. Therefore, there is a need to identify and characterize stress tolerance (drought, salinity and heat shock) genes from local habitat in the NWC region of Egypt. Study of the induction and expression of these stress genes in wild plants could provide understanding of how these plants adapt to the arid environment. Furthermore, it will provide information for selection of stress tolerance among different wild plant sources. Since barley is considered one of the most important pulse crops in Egypt, engineering of stress tolerance genes to produce varieties which could grow under stress conditions is one of the choice agricultural measure. In the NWC region of Egypt there is a wealth of genetic resources for plants from drought, heat and salt tolerant wild species, which could be utilized for this purpose.

OBJECTIVES

•  Characterization of the genetic diversity among different endogenous barley cultivars collected from the North-West Coastal region of Egypt to serve as a good background for genetic improvement.

•  Screening the endogenous barley varieties, as well as wild germplasm for stress-related genes (drought, salinity and heat shock).

•  Isolation and characterization of stress-related sequences that might contribute to the tolerance of abiotic stresses either from endogenous barley cultivars or from wild germplasm.

•  The isolated clones will be structurally and functionally characterized in order to produce gene constructs for plant transformation.

•  Production of transgenic barley plants that have tolerance to one or more of the abiotic stresses

•  Field trials in the North-West Coastal region of Egypt are important to get benefit of the rain, meanwhile, field trials in the new reclaimed land in the desert where underground water is not enough and have different degrees of salinity are also important.

ACHIEVEMENTS

•  Samples representing different barley taxa and cultivars were collected from different habitats in Egypt.

•  PCR primers specific to stress tolerance genes were constructed and are being used to screen barley germplasm for related DNA sequences.