Assessment of Transgenic Wheat for Enhanced Abiotic Stress Tolerance

Genomic studies are now yielding many candidate genes associated with tolerance to environmental stresses.  Transformation has now become routine for wheat and barley opening the opportunity to generate transgenic lines showing altered expression of candidate genes.  However, evaluation of the transgenic lines remains difficult for these types of traits due to the complexity of the stress tolerance phenotype and the stringent regulatory requirements associated with field evaluation. A pathway for the assessment of transgenic wheat lines under controlled and field conditions will be presented and illustrated with examples of transgenic lines engineered for enhanced tolerance to salinity or drought stress.