Sakhno L. Сreation of canola plants (Brassica napus L.) bearing heterologous genes of different origins and analysis of their tolerance to abiotic stresses

The thesis is aimed to obtaine and analyse the transgenic canola plants as initial material for selection for the improved productivity under both favourable and stress conditions.The usage of leaf discs of aseptic plants as the explants for transformation was the feature of our protocol. We have produced several groups of transgenic canola plants. They express either 1) lox-dependent bar gene or 2) both bar and epsps genes or 3) nptII, bar, epsps genes and desC gene for DesC desaturase from cyanobacterium Synechococcus vulcanus transcriptionally fused with licBM3 gene for lichenase from bacterium Clostridium termocellum or 4) bar gene and HuInf-?2b gene for human interferon alpha-2b or 5) bar gene and cyp11A1 gene for cytochrome P450SCC from bovine adrenal cortex mitochondria. The integtation and transcriptional activity of the target genes were demonstrated using PCR and RT-PCR analyses.Two groups of transgenic plants were able to produce higher biomass than untransformed ones under physiological as well as abiotic stress conditions (heat shock, water deficit). There were cyp11A1 and HuInf-alpha-2b canola plants.These plants differed from the others by means of their SOD activity under normal growth conditions. SOD is the first enzyme in the plant antioxidant system to protect from excessive amount of reactive oxygen species.The elevated SOD activity may be a consequence of either cyp11A1 or HuInf-alpha-2b gene expression. We propose to use the means of SOD activity for primary selection of plant material for osmotic stress tolerance.