By Alice McFarlane

USask-led team sequences genomes for 15 wheat varieties

Nov 26, 2020 | 10:19 AM

MELFORT, Sask. – A University of Saskatchewan (USask) led team has cracked the genetic code for 15 different kinds of wheat.

This will allow scientists and breeders to identify influential genes more quickly and in turn create varieties that will improve crop yield, resistance to pests and other crop traits.

USask project leader Curtis Pozniak said it is a proud moment.

“It’s an exciting day for us in the wheat community,” Pozniak told farmnewsNOW. “For the first time we’ve generated multiple wheat genomic sequences.”

Two years ago, Pozniak was part of a large international project that sequenced the first wheat genome. It was important because researchers could see, for the first time, the blueprint for wheat. But it was just the start.

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“If you only have one of something it’s hard to compare,” he said.

Scientists were interested in finding out what made some wheat varieties better then others. Pozniak said the strategy for this work was to sequence multiple wheat varieties so they could be compared, and researchers could really understand the differences between the 15 varieties.

Pozniak said this resulted in an atlas of information that can be used to assist in breeding and research to better understand how wheat works.

“It’s like finding the missing pieces for your favourite puzzle that you have been working on for decades,” Pozniak said. “By having many complete gene assemblies available, we can now help solve the huge puzzle that is the massive wheat pan-genome and usher in a new era for wheat discovery and breeding.”

The 10+ Genome Project involved roughly 100 scientists from universities and institutes in Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, the U.K., Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Israel, Australia, and the U.S.

Pozniak said programs all over the world can look at the genetic material and how it relates to the lines that were sequenced to help them with their research.

“It gives us the opportunity to really understand the genetic differences between the material we use in breeding programs in Canada and how we might be able to use some of the genetic information for varieties from around the globe in our own breeding program,” Pozniak said.

The 10+ Genome study represents the start of a larger effort to generate thousands of genome sequences of wheat, including genetic material brought in from wild wheat.

The research team was able to track the unique DNA signatures of genetic material incorporated into modern cultivars from undomesticated wheat.

“These wheat relatives have been used by breeders to improve disease resistance and stress resistance of wheat,” Pozniak said. “One of these relatives contributed a DNA segment to modern wheat that contains disease-resistant genes and provides protection against a number of fungal diseases.”

Pozniak said collaborators from Kansas State University and CIMMYT (Mexico) showed this segment can improve yields by as much as 10 per cent. Since breeding is a continual improvement process scientists can cross plants to select for this trait.

Wheat is one of the world’s most cultivated cereal crops and it plays an important role in global food security, providing about 20 per cent of human caloric intake. It is estimated wheat production must increase by more than 50 per cent by 2050 to meet increasing global demand.

The research results were published in Nature.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF