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CATEGORIES:Plant Sciences Departmental Seminars
SUMMARY:What domestication missed: exploiting wild emmer t
 o improve wheat - Cristobal Uauy\, Department of C
 rop Genetics\, John Innes Centre
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20091022T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20091022T170000
UID:TALK20032AThttp://talks.cam.ac.uk
URL:http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/20032
DESCRIPTION:Wild emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoid
 es\; DIC) has long been recognized as a potential 
 source of valuable alleles for a series of importa
 nt agronomic traits in wheat. We have recently iso
 lated two such genes from wild emmer through posit
 ional cloning.  Gpc-B1 is a NAC transcription fact
 or that improves the efficiency of mineral remobil
 ization from senescing leaves to grains. The wild 
 emmer allele accelerates senescence by 2-3 days an
 d increases grain N\, Zn and Fe concentration by 1
 0-15%. Closely linked to Gpc-B1 (0.3 cM) we identi
 fied Yr36\, a gene that confers non race-specific 
 or partial resistance to Puccinia striiformis f. s
 p. tritici (PST)\, the yellow rust pathogen. This 
 gene encodes a kinase-START domain protein\, repre
 senting a novel gene architecture\, and its resist
 ance was shown to be temperature dependant. Both G
 pc-B1 and Yr36 are either non-functional or delete
 d in all cultivated durum and bread wheat varietie
 s. However\, backcross introgressions of the DIC s
 egment including Gpc-B1 and Yr36 confers consisten
 t increases in grain protein and micronutrient con
 centration in tetraploid and hexaploid wheat varie
 ties as well as improving resistance to PST in sus
 ceptible cultivars. This suggests that the Gpc-B1 
 and Yr36 wild emmer alleles have the potential to 
 contribute to the improvement of wheat nutritional
  value and yellow rust resistance in a wide range 
 of germplasm. During the seminar we will discuss s
 trategies to reduce the threshold for gene cloning
  in polyploid wheat and the approaches and tools u
 sed for functional characterization of these genes
 . Overall\, our work with emmer argues for the imp
 ortance of using wild species to discover and reco
 ver valuable alleles for modern agriculture. This 
 will become increasingly important as we face new 
 challenges to secure a sustainable food supply in 
 a changing environment. 
LOCATION:Department of Plant Sciences\, Large Lecture Theat
 re
CONTACT:Ian Henderson
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