Development of Drought Tolerant Transgenic Cotton through Agrobacterium Mediated Transformation

The growth and productivity of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) are adversely affected by abiotic stresses such as dehydration. Plants adaptation to these stresses is controlled by cascades of molecular networks, including the dehydration responsive element binding (DREB) transcription factors, which specifically interact with C-repeat/DRE (A/GCCGAC), play an important role in plant environmental stress tolerance by controlling the expression of many stress related genes. In this work, an optimized cotton regeneration system from shoot apices was developed. The hypocotyl explants were transformed with Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain LBA4404 harboring the recombinant binary vector containing the DREB gene and Neomycin phosphotransferase (nptII) gene as a selectable marker under the control of CaMV 35S promoter. New putative plantlets were subsequently regenerated and confirmed by Polymerase chain reaction and southern blot analysis.