NESPAL > Biotechnology and Plant Breeding > Research Projects > Peanuts and Grasses

Plant Biotechnology in Peanuts and Grasses: Ozias-Akins Biotechnology Lab
by Peggy Ozias

Agricultural production is dependent upon normal plant development, i.e. seed germination, vegetative growth, flowering, and fruit and seed development. Optimizing production efficiency requires detailed knowledge of a plant's life cycle and its interaction with biotic and abiotic factors. Our research has the long-term goal of enhancing crop production and one of these research directions is plant biotechnology in peanuts and grasses.

Our research on plant development extends to tissue culture, plant regeneration from these cultures, and gene transfer using these tools to enhance disease resistance or quality traits. Non-transgenic approaches also are being used for crop improvement including marker-assisted selection for nematode resistance in peanut. We are conducting genetic engineering research on peanut, pearl millet, and bermudagrass. In all three species, embryogenic tissue cultures are initiated and subsequently used in various transformation protocols. Most of the protocols employ the biolistic process. Transgenic plants are regenerated from transformed cultures and are analyzed for the stability and inheritance of the introduced genes. In peanut, reporter genes and genes that may reduce insect damage, aflatoxin contamination, and tomato spotted wilt virus infection have been introduced. Extensive field testing on one transgenic line containing a virus-derived gene has shown it to be much less susceptible to the virus than its parental cultivar MARC I. In addition to the development of transgenic peanut, we also have characterized genomic copies of conglutin allergen genes in this crop in order to facilitate allergen gene knockout or knockdown.
Project abstracts and reports
http://www.aspergillusflavus.org/pdfs/AEW2002.pdf
http://www.aspergillusflavus.org/pdfs/AEW2003.pdf
http://www.aspergillusflavus.org/pdfs/2004.AEW.proceedings.pdf
Selected Publications
Ozias-Akins, P., R. Gill. 2001. Progress in the development of tissue culture and transformation methods applicable to the production of transgenic peanut. Peanut Sci. 28:123-131.

Goldman, J. J., W. W. Hanna, G. F. Fleming, and P. Ozias-Akins. 2003. Fertile transgenic pearl millet [ Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br. ] plants recovered through microprojectile bombardment and phosphinothricin selection of apical meristem-, inflorescence-, and immature embryo- derived embryogenic tissues. Plant Cell Rep. 21:999-1009.

Goldman, J.J., W.W. Hanna, G.H. Fleming, and P. Ozias-Akins. 2003. Ploidy variation among herbicide-resistant bermudagrass plants of cv TifEagle transformed with the bar gene. Plant Cell Reports 22:553-560.

Yang, H.Y., P. Ozias-Akins, A.K. Culbreath, D.W. Gorbet, J.R. Weeks, B. Mandal, and H.R. Pappu. 2004. Field Evaluation of Tomato spotted wilt virus Resistance in Transgenic Peanut (Arachis hypogaea). Plant Dis. 88:259-264.

Joshi, M., C. Niu, G. Fleming, S. Hazra, Y. Chu, C. J. Nairn, H. Yang, P. Ozias-Akins. 2005. Use of green fluorescent protein as a non-destructive marker for peanut genetic transformation. In Vitro Plant 41:437-445.