Morgun B. Improvement of cultivated cereals by methods of genetic engineering and marker-associated selection.

The thesis is devoted to the creation of herbicide resistant wheat and corn plants by genetic engineering methods, as well as to the development of methodological and practical principles of using molecular genetic markers for selection and genotyping of cereals by genes that determine important economic traits. As a result of the work, the principles of vector construction and DNA sequence selection were developed on the example of a model species Physcomitrella patens and an Antarctic plant Deschampsia antarctica, which can be used for plant genetic engineering. The influence of biologically active substances on morphogenetic processes in bread wheat was studied for the first time. The technologies of genetic transformation of wheat and corn in in vitro culture and in planta method to obtain transgenic plants resistant to herbicides were optimized. The level of polymorphism of DNA regions flanked by inverted LTR repeats of different retrotransposons was analyzed, and their differences from non-transgenic forms in genetic structure were revealed. A new improved technique for detecting transformation events based on multiplex polymerase chain reaction has been developed and the distribution of transgenic plants has been monitored. Methodical and practical bases of DNA markers use for selection and genotyping of the most widespread in Ukraine grain crops on genes which determine important economic and valuable traits are developed. Valuable source selection material and new varieties-innovations of different directions of use have been created.