Osmotic stress responses of wheat species and cultivars differing in drought tolerance: some interesting genes (advices for gene hunting)

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to provide information for the establishment of gene bank and to obtain comparative data for the new transgenic lines to be established in a later stage of this project. For revealing traits for drought tolerance, wheat species of different ploidy levels and hexaploid cultivars of different stress tolerance were chosen. For gene isolation the osmotic stress resistant Triticum aestivum L. cv. Kobomugi, and the sensitive cv. Ôthalom were chosen. Osmotic treatment was administrated using PEG 6000 at a final concentration of 400 mOsm (19.0%). Significant differences were found between the two cultivars in carbohydrate accumulation, in changes in water relation and chlorophyll fluorescence parameters measured in vivo. It is suggested that cv. Kobomugi may be a useful source for isolation of drought tolerance-related genes.