It is shown that arrays of edge dislocations with parallel Burgers vectors in the slip plane can lead to significant local changes in the transition temperatureTcof the deformed crystals of high-temperature superconductors. These changes are due to the redistribution of free charge carriers in the elastic strain fields of the ionic crystal lattice and a strong nonmonotonic dependence ofTcon the concentration of charge carriers if the characteristic length of dislocation arrays is much larger than the coherence length and screening radius. ©1998 American Institute of Physics.