Unrestricted.2016-11-142011-02-182016-11-141998-12http://hdl.handle.net/2346/19824Heat tolerance is an important objective for wheat improvement in the Southern US Great Plains. It is hypothesized that heat shock proteins play a vital role in the plant's ability to survive high temperature stress. Cloning low and high molecular weight HSPs from a thermotolerant variety of wheat will provide a building block for later studies of their function. Moreover, once significance of a HSP gene in plant thermotolerance is confirmed, beneficial cloned genes from thermotolerant varieties could be used to improve other wheat germplasm.application/pdfengHeat shock proteinsPlant molecular geneticsMolecular cloningWheatThesis