Chinese scientists achieve precise control and breeding of wheat susceptible genes...

Chinese scientists have made the latest breakthrough in the research of wheat genome editing and disease resistance breeding.

This paper on the use of susceptible genes to carry out important theoretical and technological breakthroughs in plant disease resistance breeding research was conducted by Gao Caixia's team and Xiao Jun's team from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Institute of Genetics and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Qiu Jinlong, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences The team completed it together and published it online in the internationally renowned academic journal "Nature" in the early morning of February 10, Beijing time

According to the Institute of Genetics and Development of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, wheat is one of the most important staple crops, providing energy for more than one-third of the population, and its yield and quality are directly related to world food security

However, as with the phenotypes observed in a variety of other plants, the researchers also found that the wheat mlo mutants exhibited powdery mildew resistance along with negative phenotypes such as premature senescence, stunted plants, and reduced yield, which may limit the Its wide application in production

Based on this, the cooperative research team of Chinese scientists has been constantly exploring how to further utilize the MLO gene in powdery mildew resistance breeding, hoping to achieve "you can have both

After years of continuous cooperation, in the newly completed research, the cooperative team finally analyzed the molecular mechanism of the formation of the phenotype of the wheat Tamlo-R32 mutant, and found that there is a large 304Kb large molecule near the TaMLO-B1 site of the Tamlo-R32 mutant genome.

The collaborative team pointed out that the function of the MLO gene is conserved in different plants, and further studies found that overexpression of TMT3 in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana can also overcome the negative phenotype of its mlo mutant

In order to apply the latest research results to disease resistance breeding, on the one hand, the cooperative team used traditional breeding methods to cross the Tamlo-R32 mutant with the main Chinese wheat cultivar, and introduced excellent disease resistance traits into the main cultivar through several generations of backcrossing.

Agricultural experts said that the research completed by multiple teams of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is an important progress in wheat powdery mildew resistance breeding, and it also fully demonstrates the huge application prospects of genome editing in modern agricultural production