Short project description

Denmark has central position in the spinach supply chain, producing 75% of spinach seeds used worldwide. There are important targets for plant improvement in spinach which may be reached by the application of new genomic techniques (NGT). Notably improving disease resistance. Genetic transformation is a central technique in the NGT field but very few labs in the world work with spinach transformation. To establish spinach transformation in CGB we need to set up procedures, protocols, obtain or develop molecular tools and gain hands on experience. The proposed project will develop a molecular tool to select transformed spinach plants based on visible red color using only genes from spinach (i.e. cisgenic -NGT1 or intragenic -NGT2). It is expected that such a tool will be a valuable asset, not only to obtain NGT plants in the first place but also to monitor segregation patterns etc. Further, it is expected that an NGT compliant marker will relieve some of the regulatory burdens associated with field experiments, which are generally rejected if the plants carry antibiotic resistance markers.

The experimental work will include molecular cloning and plant tissue culture techniques.