Miller Magazine Issue: 135 March 2021

46 NEWS MILLER / march 2021 Turkish scientists are transferring Antarctic grass DNA to wheat plants making them resistant to extremely arid, salty environment. Turkish scientists evolving new cold-resistant wheat Turkish scientists are planning to incorporate Antar- ctic hair grass's genetic material into wheat plants to make them resistant to the extremely arid and salty environment. A Turkish team spent 30 days in Antarcti- ca in Feb. 2019 as part of the Third National Antarctic Science Expedition, supported by the Turkish Presiden- cy, the Industry and Technology Ministry, and Istanbul Technical University's Polar Research Center and other institutions. During the expedition, the team obtained Antarctic hair grass plants from eight different locati- ons. Their samples were kept in a protective environ- ment at Nigde Omer Halisdemir University. "The plants have been growing healthily for the past two years. At the same time, we took their seeds and undertook tissue culture studies. We made a test to use these plants in landscaping in the cold environment of Nigde [province]," Zahide Neslihan Ozturk Gokce, a lecturer at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Technologies in the Omer Halisdemir University told Anadolu Agency. She said the plants continued to grow when they were put in a cold place without any sunlight. Gok- ce said that Antarctic hair grass is a relative of barley and wheat from the Poaceae family of plants, including the cereal grasses. It grows in the most nutrient-scarce, arid, and salty environments due to Antarctica's abun- dance of seawater. She said the scientists aim to pass this quality of grass to agricultural plants, adding that there are plans to use the DNA or the genetic material of Antarctic hair grass into wheat plants. Supported by the Scientific and Technological Rese- arch Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), the project will also detect the miRNA or messenger RNA genes that enab- le Antarctic hair grass to survive in extreme environ- ments. "In future projects, it is planned to obtain trans- genic plants that do not lose their yield even in case of water shortage due to climate change by transferring these genes to grains, especially wheat," said Gokce. She also said that the primary purpose is to combat drought and salinity. In April 2016, the first-ever Turkish team of resear- chers -- including doctors, botanists, geologists, and oceanographers from seven universities – had traveled to Antarctica to study the impact of climate change. Antarctica, the coldest continent on earth, has served as a scientific research zone since signing the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, committing to use the continent for pe- aceful purposes only.