Plant Tissue Cult. & Biotech. 17(1): 97-102, 2007 (June)

Short Communications

Transient GUS Expression in Decapitated Lentil Embryos

Fathi Hassan, M. Imdadul Hoque¹, Heiko Kiesecker

Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Hannover, Herrenhauser Str. 2, 30419 Hannover, Germany

Key words: Transient, GUS expression, Lentil embryos

Abastract

Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) is an important protein- and carbohydrate-rich food for many developing countries and is also popular in developed countries where they are perceived as a healthy component of the diet. Lentil seeds contain about 24.2% high quality protein, 60% carbohydrates and 2.4 - 4.2% mineral matter (Hulse 1994). Although lentil is one of the oldest cultivated crop plants, its agronomic performance is not better than a semi-domesticated species. The main constraints for lentil breeding and production are poor yield stability and high susceptibility to fungal diseases. Due to the rather narrow genetic base and lack of resistance genes against major fungal diseases in lentil conventional breeding methods cannot be applied for addressing these objectives. In this context the genetic transformation could be used to develop disease resistant plants.

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