ISSN:XXXX-XXXX SFBBJ, an open access journal Volume 1 · Issue 1 · 1000004 SF Biotechnol Bioeng J Research Article Open Access Publishers SCIFED SciFed Biotech & Bioengineering Journal I.M.Huseynova, SF Biotechnol Bioeng J, 2018, 1:1 page 1 of 6 Application of PCR-Based Functional Markers for Identification of DREB1 Genes in Triticum aestivum L. * I.M.Huseynova, S.M. Rustamova, G.R. Abdullayeva, Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnologies, Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, 2A Matbuat Avenue, Baku AZ 1073, Azerbaijan. Keyword Wheat; drought tolerance; DREB1 gene; functional markers; PCR Introduction Plants are exposed to various stresses in their natural environment. To survive plants must respond and adapt to these stresses at the molecular and cellular levels, as well as at the physiological and biochemical levels. One of the first plant responses to stress is a reorganization of the plant transcriptome. An increasing number of stress- induced genes at transcription level have been identified in several plant species [1]. Among the abiotic stress factors that have shaped and continue shaping plant evolution, water availability is the most important. Drought tolerance is a complex trait controlled by many genes, including those encoding functional proteins (e.g. late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins, osmotin, molecular chaperones, and mRNA binding proteins) or whose products are the transcription factors (TFs) such as basic leucine zipper (bZIP), myelocytomatosis oncogene (MYC) and dehydration-responsive element-binding factor (DREB) [2, 3]. The TFs interacting with specific cis-acting elements in the promoters regions of various stress-related genes to up-regulate the expression of many downstream genes, thus imparting stress tolerance to environmental stress and pathogen attack. The most studied stress-responsive TFs principally belong to six families, namely bZIP, WRKY, * Corresponding author: I.M.Huseynova, Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnologies, Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, 2A Matbuat Avenue, Baku AZ 1073, Azerbaijan. E-mail: huseynova-i@botany-az.org; Tel: (994-12) 538 1164 Fax: (994-12) 510 2433 Received March 16, 2018; Accepted September 25, 2018; Published Citation: I.M.Huseynova (2018) Application of PCR-Based Functional Markers for Identification of DREB1 Genes in Triticum aestivum L.. SF Biotechnol Bioeng J 1:1. Copyright: © 2018 I.M.Huseynova. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Genetic engineering of plants for tolerance to extreme abiotic stresses could be achieved by the regulated expression of stress-induced transcription factors, which in turn would regulate the expression of a large number of relevant downstream genes. Dehydration-responsive element binding (DREB) proteins constitute a large family of transcription factors that are induced by abiotic stresses. The primary goal of the research was to establish the presence of DREB1 genes in different genomes of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) samples collected in Gene Pool of the Research Institute of Crop Husbandry (Baku, Azerbaijan). Two pairs of genome-specific primers designed for the wheat DREB1 genes using the Primer Premier 5.0 software was used for DNA amplification. Diagnostic amplicons of 596 bp in 69 out of 75 wheat genotypes were detected by PCR analyzes performed with P25 F/PRa, as a functional marker specific for DREB-A1 gene located in the wheat a genome. The presence of the DREB-D1 gene in the D genome was checked by the specific P 22F/PRa functional marker and amplification of 586 bp fragments was observed in 56 genotypes.