Transcript UK wheat genetic research Dr Phil Howell, NIAB A highly complex beast • Wheat is a hexaploid: its 21 chromosome pairs fall.

UK wheat genetic research
Dr Phil Howell, NIAB
A highly complex beast
• Wheat is a hexaploid: its 21 chromosome pairs fall into three distinct, but
related, sets of 7 (A, B, D)
• The first draft of the wheat genome was published in July 2014, but to
date a full sequence is still only available for chromosome 3B
• The genome is both massive (5x human) and difficult (80% repetitive DNA)
IWGSC http://www.wheatgenome.org
Species
Genome size
Genes
Published
Wheat
17 Gbp
120 000
2014
Human
3.3 Gbp
20 000
2003
Rice
420 Mbp
35 000
2006
Arabidopsis
135 Mbp
25 000
2000
A rich history........
...which we can now interrogate
+ 3-5 years to
develop prebreeding lines
+ 3 years to
screen them
Fully crossable – bringing DD
variation into modern varieties
+ 7-10 more
years to
develop new
varieties
themselves
Sources of genetic diversity
Variety collections
Mutants
Land races
Related species
Resynthesis
Watch this space...
The next few years hold the promise of:
• F1 hybrid wheat varieties with increased yield and stability
• first EU roll-out likely to be in FR, but UK not far behind
• breeders using modern genetics/genomics to overcome old stumbling blocks
• Changes in breeding strategy
• genomic selection is now being applied to plant breeding and should speed up the rate of
genetic improvement
• diverse material moving public  private; new varieties expected 7-10 years after crosses
• More field trials of GM & ‘genome-edited’ wheat
• 2012 and 2013 Rothamsted run successful field trials to test aphid resistance; publication
imminent
• 2014 Chinese group used genome editing to simultaneously mutate Mlo genes in all 3
genomes heritable mildew resistance
• NIAB & JIC currently working on take-all resistant GM wheat, by transferring the entire oat
avenicin pathway into wheat
...keep watching!
•Roots, the final frontier
• For the first time we can look at what goes on beneath the ground without laborious and
inaccurate washing experiments
• Nottingham University X-ray CT scanner to visualise roots grown in rhizotrons
• NIAB have developed DNA assays to quantify root mass at different depths
• Remote & high-throughput phenotyping
• Robotic growth systems eg National Plant Phenomics Centre at IBERS, Aberystwyth can
track individual plants throughout their whole life cycle
• Data gathered on field plots through the season from hand-held and UAV measurements
obvious applications to agronomy and breeding
Thank you
Pre-breeding at NIAB receives no core funding......
NIAB Trust