Inheritance of gene expression in polyploid wheat

多倍体小麦基因表达的遗传

基本信息

批准号：
BB/T013524/2
负责人：
Philippa Borrill
金额：
$ 56.03万
依托单位：
John Innes Centre
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2021
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2021 至无数据
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FT013524%2F2
关键词：
Inheritance gene expression polyploid wheat

项目摘要

Ensuring that we have a secure food supply is one of the biggest challenges facing humankind today. To be able to meet this challenge we will need to use a wide range of approaches to improve crop production. Many of our major crops are polyploid, which means that all their DNA has been duplicated and they have multiple copies of each gene. Polyploidy is particularly common in plants and many of our most important foods come from polyploids. It is likely that you ate a polyploid for breakfast since these include the wheat which made your toast, oats in your porridge, potatoes in your hash browns or that healthy banana. The world's population is increasing rapidly, which means we will need to dramatically increase food production to make sure everyone has enough to eat. However, increasing the production of polyploid crops is complicated by the multiple copies of each gene in their DNA. In a non-polyploid plant we can work out the function of an individual gene, to be able to use that gene to improve the crop. For example we might want to identify a gene which can make more tomatoes per plant. However in a polyploid we don't just need to understand what the function of one gene is, we need to know what the other copies are doing too.In our lab we are using wheat as an example to start understanding the multiple copies of genes in polyploids. The different organs and cells in a wheat plant all have the same DNA with three copies of each gene, but the gene copies can be switched on, switched off or dimmed independently, much like a room with three separate lamps. We recently found that about one third of the time the gene copies are turned on at different levels. Surprisingly in different wheat plants these gene copies can be turned on in different patterns. For example in one wheat plant copy number 1 might be turned on, but in a different wheat plant copy number 1 is turned off and copy number 2 is turned on. To develop improved wheat plants we crossbreed different wheat plants to generate seeds that have some characteristics from the mother and some from the father, aiming for improved characteristics overall. We found that the offspring from such a cross may keep the same pattern of gene copies turned on as their mother or their father, or they may make a new pattern. In this project we will discover how often new patterns of gene activity are generated and how these patterns are controlled. The knowledge we obtain will be used to find ways to change the patterns of gene activity which will benefit the production of wheat and other polyploid crops.

确保我们拥有安全的粮食供应是当今人类面临的最大挑战之一。为了应对这一挑战，我们需要采用多种方法来提高作物产量。我们的许多主要作物都是多倍体，这意味着它们的所有 DNA 都已复制，并且每个基因都有多个拷贝。多倍体在植物中特别常见，我们许多最重要的食物都来自多倍体。您早餐很可能吃的是多倍体，因为其中包括制作吐司的小麦、粥中的燕麦、炸薯饼中的土豆或健康的香蕉。世界人口正在迅速增长，这意味着我们需要大幅增加粮食产量，以确保每个人都有足够的食物。然而，由于 DNA 中每个基因都有多个拷贝，增加多倍体作物的产量变得很复杂。在非多倍体植物中，我们可以计算出单个基因的功能，以便能够利用该基因来改良作物。例如，我们可能想要识别一个可以让每株植物生产更多西红柿的基因。然而，在多倍体中，我们不仅需要了解一个基因的功能是什么，还需要知道其他拷贝在做什么。在我们的实验室中，我们以小麦为例来开始了解基因的多个拷贝在多倍体中。小麦植株中的不同器官和细胞都具有相同的 DNA，每个基因有 3 个拷贝，但基因拷贝可以独立打开、关闭或调暗，就像一个房间里有三个独立的灯一样。我们最近发现，大约三分之一的时间基因拷贝在不同水平上被打开。令人惊讶的是，在不同的小麦植株中，这些基因拷贝可以以不同的模式打开。例如，在一株小麦植物中，拷贝数 1 可能被打开，但在不同的小麦植物中，拷贝数 1 被关闭，而拷贝数 2 被打开。为了开发改良的小麦植株，我们对不同的小麦植株进行杂交，产生具有一些来自母亲的特性和一些来自父亲的特性的种子，旨在改善整体特性。我们发现，这种杂交的后代可能会保持与母亲或父亲相同的基因拷贝模式，或者它们可能会产生新的模式。在这个项目中，我们将发现新的基因活动模式产生的频率以及这些模式是如何控制的。我们获得的知识将用于寻找改变基因活性模式的方法，这将有利于小麦和其他多倍体作物的生产。