Award details

Engineering stress tolerance in maize (ESTIM)

Reference	BBS/E/J/00000110
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Prof. Phillip Mullineaux
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	John Innes Centre
Department	John Innes Centre Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	66,426
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/1997
End date	01/06/1997
Duration	2 months

Abstract

Maize is one of the most important crops for European agriculture. The energetic value and high nutritional quality makes silage maize a basic element for animal feeding. Since maize originates from tropical regions it is sensitive to low- temperature stress, explaining why stress tolerance has become a major selection criterion in current maize breeding programmes. Under chilling conditions, the chloroplasts of maize are susceptible to free radical damage of the photosynthetic apparatus and pigments. The multidisciplinary group in this project aims to improve the free radical scavenging capacity of the chloroplast by overexpressing enzymes implicated in scavenging active oxygen species (AOS) and in the turnover of antioxidants. Such transgenic plants will then be subjected to detailed analysis by biochemical and biophysical methods to detect possible changes in low temperature stress tolerance. Transgenic maize lines overexpressing AOS scavenging enzymes will be evaluated in the field.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Agri-food (AF)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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