[{"name":"Desjardins, Stuart D.", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Simmonds, James", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Guterman, Inna", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kanyuka, Kostya", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Burridge, Amanda J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Tock, Andrew J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Sanchez-Moran, Eugenio", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Franklin, F. Chris H.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Henderson, Ian R.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Edwards, Keith J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Uauy, Cristobal", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Higgins, James D.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Basavaraddi, Priyanka A."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Savin, Roxana"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Sukumaran, Sivakumar"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Reynolds, Matthew P."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Griffiths, Simon"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Slafer, Gustavo A."}]
The biosynthetic route for the synthesis of trehalose in plants is through a low-flux pathway that leads to the accumulation of micromolar amounts of trehalose 6-phosphate (T6P) and trehalose when sucrose is available. T6P accumulates in proportion to sucrose (Lunn et al., 2006) as an indispensable regulator of carbohydrate utilization (Schluepmann et al., 2003). At least some of the indispensability of T6P and its profound and widespread effects on plant growth and development can be explained through T6P inhibition of the SNF1-related protein kinase SnRK1 (Zhang et al., 2009), a central regulator of plant responses to carbon and energy status. Through T6P/SnRK1-mediated signaling, plant growth and development are regulated in line with sucrose availability by large-scale reprogramming of gene expression, which includes derepression of anabolic growth processes when carbon is available (Zhang et al., 2009). In crops, there are several emerging cases where T6P/SnRK1 can be modified to alter carbon use and allocation to improve yield under field conditions (Paul et al., 2020). The most successful route through which T6P has been genetically modified for yield and resilience so far is to alter trehalose phosphate phosphatase (TPP) activity. Ectopic expression of a TPP enzyme in maize reproductive tissue using the MADS-box transcription factor 6 (MADS6) gene promoter increased grain numbers in the field, especially under drought (Nuccio et al., 2015). Altered distribution of sucrose away from pith toward developing grain was associated with altered expression of genes encoding Sucrose Will Eventually Be Exported Transporters (SWEETs) and prevented abortion of grain under drought (Oszvald et al., 2018). In sorghum, it was found through genetic crosses of sweet and grain sorghum that a Basic Leucine Zipper Domain (bZIP) transcription factor elevated TPP expression, which underpinned the large differences in height of stems and accumulation of carbohydrates within stems of sweet and grain sorghum (Paul et al., 2020). A TPP gene in rice was found to underlie a quantitative trait locus for germination under flooded conditions through better mobilization of starch reserves, likely through SnRK1, providing promise for the development of direct-seeded rice (Paul et al., 2020).
Improving rice photosynthesis and yield through trehalose 6-phosphate signaling
Abstract With the requirement to breed more productive crop plants in order to feed a growing global population, compounded by increasingly widespread resistance to pesticides exhibited by pathogens, plant immunity is becoming an increasingly important area of research. Of the genes that contribute to disease resistance, the wall-associated receptor-like kinases (WAKs) are increasingly shown to play a major role, in addition to their contribution to plant growth and development or tolerance to abiotic stresses. Being transmembrane proteins, WAKs form a central pillar of a plant cell’s ability to monitor and interact with the extracellular environment. Found in both dicots and monocots, WAKs have been implicated in defence against pathogens with diverse lifestyles and contribute to plant immunity in a variety of ways. Whilst some act as cell surface-localized immune receptors recognizing either pathogen- or plant-derived invasion molecules (e.g. effectors or damage-associated molecular patterns, respectively), others promote innate immunity through cell wall modification and strengthening, thus limiting pathogen intrusion. The ability of some WAKs to provide both durable resistance against pathogens and other agronomic benefits makes this gene family important targets in the development of future crop ideotypes and important to a greater understanding of the complexity and robustness of plant immunity.
[{"type": "first", "name": "Wu, Xiaobin"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Li, Hongbo"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Rengel, Zed"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Whalley, William R."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Li, Haigang"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Zhang, Fusuo"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Shen, Jianbo"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Jin, Kemo"}]
During meiosis, DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) occur throughout the genome, a subset of which are repaired to form reciprocal crossovers between chromosomes. Crossovers are essential to ensure balanced chromosome segregation and to create new combinations of genetic variation. Meiotic DSBs are formed by a topoisomerase-VI-like complex, containing catalytic (e.g. SPO11) proteins and auxiliary (e.g. PRD3) proteins. Meiotic DSBs are formed in chromatin loops tethered to a linear chromosome axis, but the interrelationship between DSB-promoting factors and the axis is not fully understood. Here, we study the localisation of SPO11-1 and PRD3 during meiosis, and investigate their respective functions in relation to the chromosome axis. Using immunocytogenetics, we observed that the localisation of SPO11-1 overlaps relatively weakly with the chromosome axis and RAD51, a marker of meiotic DSBs, and that SPO11-1 recruitment to chromatin is genetically independent of the axis. In contrast, PRD3 localisation correlates more strongly with RAD51 and the chromosome axis. This indicates that PRD3 likely forms a functional link between SPO11-1 and the chromosome axis to promote meiotic DSB formation. We also uncovered a new function of SPO11-1 in the nucleation of the synaptonemal complex protein ZYP1. We demonstrate that chromosome co-alignment associated with ZYP1 deposition can occur in the absence of DSBs, and is dependent on SPO11-1, but not PRD3. Lastly, we show that the progression of meiosis is influenced by the presence of aberrant chromosomal connections, but not by the absence of DSBs or synapsis. Altogether, our study provides mechanistic insights into the control of meiotic DSB formation and reveals diverse functional interactions between SPO11-1, PRD3 and the chromosome axis.
Differentiated function and localisation of SPO11-1 and PRD3 on the chromosome axis during meiotic DSB formation in Arabidopsis thaliana
Biocontrol Mechanisms of Endophytic Microorganisms
Significance To date, the potential of utilizing root traits in plant breeding remains largely untapped. In this study, we cloned and characterized the ENHANCED GRAVITROPISM2 ( EGT2 ) gene of barley that encodes a STERILE ALPHA MOTIF domain–containing protein. We demonstrated that EGT2 is a key gene of root growth angle regulation in response to gravity, which is conserved in barley and wheat and could be a promising target for crop improvement in cereals.
ENHANCED GRAVITROPISM 2 encodes a STERILE ALPHA MOTIF-containing protein that controls root growth angle in barley and wheat
[{"type": "first", "name": "Addy, John W.G."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Ellis, Richard H."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Macdonald, Andy J."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Semenov, Mikhail A."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Mead, Andrew"}]
[{"name":"Adamski, Nikolai M.", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Simmonds, James", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Brinton, Jemima F.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Backhaus, Anna E.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Chen, Yi", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Smedley, Mark", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hayta, Sadiye", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Florio, Tobin", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Crane, Pamela", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Scott, Peter", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Pieri, Alice", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hall, Olyvia", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Barclay, J. Elaine", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Clayton, Myles", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Doonan, John H.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Nibau, Candida", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Uauy, Cristobal", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Annotated sgRNA construct sequences in the GenBank format
Nanotechnology plays a critical role in agriculture and its associated management strategies. The emergence of plant pathogens (phytopathogens) across various crops has posed a threat to global food production, food security, and food safety. The existing control techniques, such as chemical application of pesticides and insecticides, have become outdated due to their drawbacks. Such methods for plant disease control come with the added disadvantage of threat to natural microflora and fauna along with imparting toxicity to the environment. This in turn causes risk to human health. Therefore researchers have been looking for safer alternatives that are equally or more efficient and effective in dealing with phytopathogens along with possessing least amount of toxicity. The generation of nanoparticles (NPs) and its application in plant disease management has intrigued researchers and therefore has revealed an altogether new dimension for the purpose. NP-mediated disease management strategies have proven to be highly proficient and have been explored for a wide range of plant diseases. However, the NPs derived through chemical and physical methods such as electroreduction, use of reagents for reduction/oxidation of metals, may impart toxicity and also cause environmental hazard. Therefore the synthesis of NPs from microbes, known as green synthesis, is far safer in terms of toxicity. The following chapter elucidates the various bacterial and fungal-derived NPs, their characteristic features, and the associated mechanism for protection against plant pathogens.
Microbially synthesized nanoparticles: aspect in plant disease management
Mineral nutrients absorbed in the inorganic form are indispensable for plant growth and development. The various processes underlying yield formation in crops such as biomass accumulation and its partitioning, are directly regulated by nutrient supply. Plants essentially require 17 elements for the production of optimum biomass and yield, while some additional elements are beneficial for their survival under stress and/or improvement in quality of economic produce. The relationship between nutrient supply and yield was well established by Mitscherlich (1947) and is known as the ‘Law of diminishing yield increment’. This law states that if the supply of a particular nutrient is increased, it will cause non-availability of other nutrients or the limitation of genetic potential of crops, resulting in no increase or even a decrease in yield. Furthermore, it is observed that when a particular nutrient is supplied in abundance, the decrease in yield could be due to physiological factors, toxicity or induced deficiency of other nutrients within the plant, or in the soil, and interactions with other elements. For example, excess supply of nitrogen (N) to cereals causes lodging thereby reducing yield. Another example of induced toxicity is where excess nickel (Ni) supplementation displaces magnesium (Mg2+) ions from Rubisco, resulting in a loss of enzyme activity (Wildner & Henkel, 1979; van Assche & Clijsters, 1986). Likewise, higher tissue concentrations of zinc (Zn) reduce the uptake of phosphorus (P) and vice-versa (Mohammed et al. 2021). Nutrient availability in soil is primarily dependent on the pH of the soil solution, which is very often altered by the presence of excess amounts of some nutrients. For example, in acid soils with high aluminium (Al3+) and iron (Fe3+) content, the availability of inorganic P to plant roots is restricted. Therefore, to achieve optimal growth and potential yield of crops, not only nutrient deficiencies but also excesses or toxicity stresses need to be taken into consideration. The concentration of any particular nutrient in plant tissues beyond the critical threshold level, either in the deficit or the toxic zone, will result in decline in yield and quality.
[{"name":"Nitnavare, Rahul B.", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Bhattacharya, Joorie", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Singh, Satnam", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kour, Amardeep", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hawkesford, Malcolm J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Arora, Naveen", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"name":"Huber, Monika", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Armbruster, Laura", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Etherington, Ross D.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"De La Torre, Carolina", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hawkesford, Malcolm J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Sticht, Carsten", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Gibbs, Daniel J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hell, Rüdiger", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Wirtz, Markus", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Scotch Whisky is an important global commodity which generates extensive co-product known as pot ale or spent wash (> 10 L co-product per L whisky). Whilst this is often used as fertiliser or animal feed, a proportion requires disposal resulting in cost to the distillery along with the negative impact on the carbon footprint due to transportation. This study examined the composition of the soluble fraction of pot ale from twenty-two distilleries in Scotland in order to assess the potential for resource recovery and transition to a more circular economy. The results reinforced previous studies, demonstrating that pot ale is an excellent source of protein with a potential for recovery >150, 000 t per annum in Scotland based on Whisky production data. Lactic acid, an important industrial platform chemical, was the major organic acid produced with concentrations ranging from 0.3 to 6.6 g L−1, representing a potential opportunity for recovery for applications such as manufacture of biodegradable polylactic acid for plastics (> 15,000 t per annum based on mean values). Other important platform chemicals, succinic acid and lysine were also identified and considered in sufficient amounts for future use. Pot ale was also shown to contain significant amounts of critical raw materials, magnesium and phosphate, which could be reclaimed for use in fertiliser/feed supporting the development of a new circular economy whilst at the same time reducing the burden of mining and transportation on the environment. The data in this study demonstrated a potential 13.8 kt recoverable phosphate per annum representing more than half of the annual fertiliser consumption in Scotland. Whisky co-products can contribute to sustainable energy, food and platform chemicals with the added value that metal concentrations are not sufficiently high to prevent its utilisation.
Recoverable resources from pot ale and spent wash from Scotch Whisky production
ABSTRACT Many wild relative species are being used in pre-breeding programmes to increase the genetic diversity of wheat. Genotyping tools such as single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based arrays and molecular markers have been widely used to characterise wheat-wild relative introgression lines. However, due to the polyploid nature of the recipient wheat genome, it is difficult to develop SNP-based KASP markers that are codominant to track the introgressions from the wild species. Previous attempts to develop KASP markers have involved both exome- and PCR-amplicon-based sequencing of the wild species. But chromosome-specific KASPs assays have been hindered by homoeologous SNPs within the wheat genome. This study involved whole genome sequencing of the diploid wheat wild relative Amblyopyrum muticum and development of a SNP discovery pipeline that generated ∼38,000 SNPs in single-copy wheat genome sequences. New assays were designed to increase the density of Am. muticum polymorphic KASP markers. With a goal of one marker per 60 Mbp, 335 new KASP assays were validated as functional. Together with assays validated in previous studies, 498 well distributed chromosome-specific markers were used to recharacterize previously genotyped wheat- Am. muticum doubled haploid (DH) introgression lines. The chromosome specific nature of the KASP markers allowed clarification of which wheat chromosomes were involved with recombination events or substituted with Am. muticum chromosomes and the higher density of markers allowed detection of new small introgressions in these DH lines. Key Message A novel methodology to generate chromosome-specific SNPs between wheat and its wild relative Amblyopyrum muticum and their use in the development of KASP markers to genotype wheat- Am. muticum introgression lines.
A novel approach to develop wheat chromosome-specific KASP markers for detecting Amblyopyrum muticum segments in doubled haploid introgression lines
[{"type": "first", "name": "Winfield, Mark"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Wilkinson, Paul"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Burridge, Amanda"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Allen, Alexandra"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Coghill, Jane"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Waterfall, Christy"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Edwards, Keith"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Barker, Gary"}]
Summary Whole genome duplication (WGD) is widespread in plant evolutionary history, but the mechanisms of non-random gene loss after WGD are debated. The gene balance hypothesis proposes that dosage-sensitive genes such as regulatory genes are retained in polyploids. To test this hypothesis, we analysed the retention of transcription factors (TFs) in the recent allohexaploid bread wheat (Triticum aestivum ). We annotated TFs in hexaploid, tetraploid and diploid wheats; compared the co-expression of homoeologous TF and non-TF triads; and analysed single nucleotide variation in TFs across cultivars. We found that, following each of two hybridisation and WGD events, the proportion of TFs in the genome increased. TFs were preferentially retained over other genes as homoeologous groups in tetraploid and hexaploid wheat. Across cultivars, TF triads contain fewer deleterious missense mutations than non-TFs. TFs are preferentially retained as three functional homoeologs in hexaploid wheat, in support of the gene balance hypothesis. High co-expression between TF homoeologs suggests that neo- and sub-functionalisation are not major drivers of TF retention in this young polyploid. Knocking out one TF homoeolog to alter gene dosage, using TILLING or CRISPR, could be a way to further test the gene balance hypothesis and generate new phenotypes for wheat breeding.
Transcription factor retention through multiple polyploidisation steps in wheat
[{"name":"Oszvald, Maria", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hassall, Kirsty L.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hughes, David", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Torres-Ballesteros, Adriana", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Clark, Ian", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Riche, Andrew B.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Heuer, Sigrid", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"name":"David, Etienne", "type":"first", "affiliation":"Arvalis, Institut du Végétal, 3 Rue Joseph et Marie Hackin, 75116 Paris, France"}, {"name":"Serouart, Mario", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Arvalis, Institut du Végétal, 3 Rue Joseph et Marie Hackin, 75116 Paris, France"}, {"name":"Smith, Daniel", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"School of Food and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Queensland, Gatton, 4343 QLD, Australia"}, {"name":"Madec, Simon", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Arvalis, Institut du Végétal, 3 Rue Joseph et Marie Hackin, 75116 Paris, France"}, {"name":"Velumani, Kaaviya", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"UMR1114 EMMAH, INRAE, Centre PACA, Bâtiment Climat, Domaine Saint-Paul, 228 Route de l’Aérodrome, CS 40509, 84914 Avignon Cedex, France"}, {"name":"Liu, Shouyang", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Plant Phenomics Research Center, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China"}, {"name":"Wang, Xu", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Wheat Genetics Resource Center, Dep. of Plant Pathology, Kansas State Univ., 4024 Throckmorton Plant Sciences Center, Manhattan, Kansas, USA"}, {"name":"Pinto, Francisco", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Global Wheat Program, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), Mexico, D.F., Mexico"}, {"name":"Shafiee, Shahameh", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Faculty of Biosciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, NO-1432 Ås, Norway"}, {"name":"Tahir, Izzat S. A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Agricultural Research Corporation, Wheat Research Program, P.O. Box 126, Wad Medani, Sudan"}, {"name":"Tsujimoto, Hisashi", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Arid Land Research Center, Tottori University, Tottori 680-0001, Japan"}, {"name":"Nasuda, Shuhei", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Laboratories of Plant Genetics and Plant Breeding, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Japan"}, {"name":"Zheng, Bangyou", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Queensland Biosciences Precinct, 306 Carmody Road, St Lucia, 4067 QLD, Australia"}, {"name":"Kirchgessner, Norbert", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Agricultural Sciences, ETH Zurich, Universitätstrasse 2, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland"}, {"name":"Aasen, Helge", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Agricultural Sciences, ETH Zurich, Universitätstrasse 2, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland"}, {"name":"Hund, Andreas", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Agricultural Sciences, ETH Zurich, Universitätstrasse 2, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland"}, {"name":"Sadhegi-Tehran, Pouria", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Plant Sciences Department, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, UK"}, {"name":"Nagasawa, Koichi", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Crop Science, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, Japan"}, {"name":"Ishikawa, Goro", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Hokkaido Agricultural Research Center, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, Japan"}, {"name":"Dandrifosse, Sébastien", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Biosystems Dynamics and Exchanges, TERRA Teaching and Research Center, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium"}, {"name":"Carlier, Alexis", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Biosystems Dynamics and Exchanges, TERRA Teaching and Research Center, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium"}, {"name":"Dumont, Benjamin", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Plant Sciences, TERRA Teaching and Research Center, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium"}, {"name":"Mercatoris, Benoit", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Biosystems Dynamics and Exchanges, TERRA Teaching and Research Center, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium"}, {"name":"Evers, Byron", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Wheat Genetics Resource Center, Dep. of Plant Pathology, Kansas State Univ., 4024 Throckmorton Plant Sciences Center, Manhattan, Kansas, USA"}, {"name":"Kuroki, Ken", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Midori-cho, Nishitokyo City, Tokyo, Japan"}, {"name":"Wang, Haozhou", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Midori-cho, Nishitokyo City, Tokyo, Japan"}, {"name":"Ishii, Masanori", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Midori-cho, Nishitokyo City, Tokyo, Japan"}, {"name":"Badhon, Minhajul A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Computer Science, University of Saskatchewan, Canada"}, {"name":"Pozniak, Curtis", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Plant Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, Canada"}, {"name":"LeBauer, David Shaner", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA"}, {"name":"Lillemo, Morten", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Faculty of Biosciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, NO-1432 Ås, Norway"}, {"name":"Poland, Jesse", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Wheat Genetics Resource Center, Dep. of Plant Pathology, Kansas State Univ., 4024 Throckmorton Plant Sciences Center, Manhattan, Kansas, USA"}, {"name":"Chapman, Scott", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"School of Food and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Queensland, Gatton, 4343 QLD, Australia"}, {"name":"de Solan, Benoit", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Arvalis, Institut du Végétal, 3 Rue Joseph et Marie Hackin, 75116 Paris, France"}, {"name":"Baret, Frédéric", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"UMR1114 EMMAH, INRAE, Centre PACA, Bâtiment Climat, Domaine Saint-Paul, 228 Route de l’Aérodrome, CS 40509, 84914 Avignon Cedex, France"}, {"name":"Stavness, Ian", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Computer Science, University of Saskatchewan, Canada"}, {"name":"Guo, Wei", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Midori-cho, Nishitokyo City, Tokyo, Japan"}]
Abstract The CRISPR/Cas technology has recently become a molecular tool of choice for gene function studies in plants as well as crop improvement. Wheat is a globally important staple crop with a well annotated genome and there is plenty of scope for improving its agriculturally important traits using genome editing technologies, such as CRISPR/Cas. As part of this study we targeted three different genes in hexaploid wheat Triticum aestivum : TaBAK1-2 in the spring cultivar Cadenza as well as Ta-eIF4E and Ta-eIF(iso)4E in winter cultivars Cezanne, Goncourt and Prevert. The primary transgenic lines carrying CRISPR/Cas-induced indels were successfully generated for all targeted genes. As winter wheat varieties are generally less amenable to genetic transformation, the successful experimental methodology for transformation and genome editing in winter wheat presented in this study will be of interest to the research community working with this crop.
Efficient CRISPR/Cas-mediated Targeted Mutagenesis in Spring and Winter Wheat Varieties
[{"name":"Burridge, Amanda J.", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Winfield, Mark O.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Wilkinson, Paul A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Przewieslik-Allen, Alexandra M.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Edwards, Keith J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Barker, Gary L. A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Stem rust caused by the fungus Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici (Pgt) is a devastating disease of the global staple crop wheat. Although this disease was largely controlled in the latter half of the twentieth century, new virulent strains of Pgt, such as Ug99, have recently evolved. These strains have caused notable losses worldwide and their continued spread threatens global wheat production. Breeding for disease resistance provides the most cost-effective control of wheat rust diseases. A number of rust resistance genes have been characterized in wheat and most encode immune receptors of the nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) class, which recognize pathogen effector proteins known as avirulence (Avr) proteins. However, only two Avr genes have been identified in Pgt so far, AvrSr35 and AvrSr50, and none in other cereal rusts. The Sr27 resistance gene was first identified in a wheat line carrying an introgression of the 3R chromosome from Imperial rye. Although not deployed widely in wheat, Sr27 is widespread in the artificial crop species Triticosecale (triticale), which is a wheat–rye hybrid and is a host for Pgt. Sr27 is effective against Ug99 and other recent Pgt strains. Here, we identify both the Sr27 gene in wheat and the corresponding AvrSr27 gene in Pgt and show that virulence to Sr27 can arise experimentally and in the field through deletion mutations, copy number variation and expression level polymorphisms at the AvrSr27 locus.
Genomics accelerated isolation of a new stem rust avirulence gene–wheat resistance gene pair
[{"name":"Wamalwa, Mercy N.", "type":"first", "affiliation":"Egerton University, Njoro 536-20115, Kenya"}, {"name":"Wanyera, Ruth", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization Njoro, Private Bag 20107, Kenya"}, {"name":"Rodriguez-Algaba, Julian", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Global Rust Reference Center, Aarhus University, Flakkebjerg, Slagelse DK-4200, Denmark"}, {"name":"Boyd, Lesley A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"National Institute of Agricultural Botany, Cambridge CB3 0LE, UK"}, {"name":"Owuoche, James", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Egerton University, Njoro 536-20115, Kenya"}, {"name":"Ogendo, Joshua", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Egerton University, Njoro 536-20115, Kenya"}, {"name":"Bhavani, Sridhar", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"CIMMYT-El Batán, Texcoco CP 56237, Edo. de México, Mexico"}, {"name":"Uauy, Cristobal", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, Norwich NR4 UH, UK"}, {"name":"Justesen, Annemarie F.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Global Rust Reference Center, Aarhus University, Flakkebjerg, Slagelse DK-4200, Denmark"}, {"name":"Hovmøller, Mogens", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Global Rust Reference Center, Aarhus University, Flakkebjerg, Slagelse DK-4200, Denmark"}]
[{"name":"Chapman, Elizabeth A.", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Orford, Simon", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Lage, Jacob", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Griffiths, Simon", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Earliness per se (Eps) genes are important to fine tune adaptation, and studying their probable pleiotropic effect on wheat yield traits is worthwhile. In addition, it has been shown that some Eps genes interact with temperature and therefore determining the likely Eps × temperature interaction is needed for each newly identified Eps gene. We studied two NILs differing in the newly identified Eps-7D (carrying insensitive Ppd-D1 in the background) under three temperature regimes (9, 15 and 18 °C) and two photoperiods (12 and 24 h). Eps-7D affected time to anthesis as expected and the Eps-7D-late allele extended both the period before and after terminal spikelet. The interaction effect of Eps-7D × temperature was significant but not cross-over: the magnitude and level of significance of the difference between NILs with the late or early allele was affected by the growing temperature (i.e., difference was least at 18 °C and largest at 9 °C), and the differences caused due to temperature sensitivity were influenced by photoperiod. The rate of leaf initiation was faster in NIL with Eps-7D-early than with the late allele which compensated for the shorter duration of leaf initiation resulting in similar final leaf number between two NILs. Eps-7D-late consistently increased spike fertility through improving floret primordia survival as a consequence of extending the late reproductive phase.
Wheat Developmental Traits as Affected by the Interaction between Eps-7D and Temperature under Contrasting Photoperiods with Insensitive Ppd-D1 Background
Abstract Ensembl Genomes (https://www.ensemblgenomes.org) provides access to non-vertebrate genomes and analysis complementing vertebrate resources developed by the Ensembl project (https://www.ensembl.org). The two resources collectively present genome annotation through a consistent set of interfaces spanning the tree of life presenting genome sequence, annotation, variation, transcriptomic data and comparative analysis. Here, we present our largest increase in plant, metazoan and fungal genomes since the project's inception creating one of the world's most comprehensive genomic resources and describe our efforts to reduce genome redundancy in our Bacteria portal. We detail our new efforts in gene annotation, our emerging support for pangenome analysis, our efforts to accelerate data dissemination through the Ensembl Rapid Release resource and our new AlphaFold visualization. Finally, we present details of our future plans including updates on our integration with Ensembl, and how we plan to improve our support for the microbial research community. Software and data are made available without restriction via our website, online tools platform and programmatic interfaces (available under an Apache 2.0 license). Data updates are synchronised with Ensembl's release cycle.
Ensembl Genomes 2022: an expanding genome resource for non-vertebrates
[{"type": "first", "name": "Zhigailov, Andrey V."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Stanbekova, Gulshan E."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Nizkorodova, Anna S."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Galiakparov, Nurbol N."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Gritsenko, Dilyara A."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Polimbetova, Nailya S."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Halford, Nigel G."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Iskakov, Bulat K."}]
Abstract Representative subsets of global climate models (GCMs) are often used in climate change impact studies to account for uncertainty in ensemble climate projections. However, the effectiveness of such subsets has seldom been assessed for the estimations of either the mean or the spread of the full ensembles. We assessed two different approaches that were employed to select 5 GCMs from a 20-member ensemble of GCMs from the CMIP5 ensemble for projecting canola and spring wheat yields across Canada under RCP 4.5 and 8.5 emission scenarios in the periods 2040–2069 and 2070–2099, based on crop simulation models. Averages and spreads of the simulated crop yields using the 5-GCM subsets selected by T&P and KKZ approaches were compared with the full 20-GCM ensemble. Our results showed that the 5-GCM subsets selected by the two approaches could produce full-ensemble means with a relative absolute error of 2.9–4.7% for canola and 1.5–2.2% for spring wheat, and covers 61.8–91.1% and 66.1–80.8% of the full-ensemble spread for canola and spring wheat, respectively. Our results also demonstrated that both approaches were very likely to outperform a subset of randomly selected 5 GCMs in terms of a smaller error and a larger range.
Effectiveness of using representative subsets of global climate models in future crop yield projections
We investigated the effect of soil organic carbon (SOC) on the consolidation behaviour of soil from two long term field experiments at Rothamsted; the Broadbalk Wheat Experiment and Hoosfield Spring Barley. These experiments are located on soil with similar particle size distributions, and include treatments with SOC contents ranging from approximately 1–3.5 g/100 g. Soils taken from plots with contrasting SOC contents were compressed and deformed in a triaxial cell and the normal consolidation and critical state lines were determined. We found that the compression index was independent of SOC, but the void ratio at any given effective stress was highly correlated with organic carbon content. By comparison with uniaxial compression data, the apparent influence of SOC on the compression index is likely to be due to its effect on soil hydraulic properties rather than any intrinsic effects of strength. The plastic limit test appears to be a useful and simple test to allow direct comparison of soil physical behaviour and expected soil density.
The effect of organic carbon content on soil compression characteristics
Together with the rise of whole-genome sequencing of many plant species, large-scale and high-throughput plant phenotyping (HTP), as well as associated phenotypic analysis, has become a bottleneck that needs to be urgently relieved (Yang et al., 2020). Plant genetics and crop breeding can be accelerated by recent rapid advances through diverse technologies, from sensors to feature extraction, combined with increasing systems integration and decreasing costs in software and hardware systems. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) driven techniques (e.g., deep learning and machine learning), computer vision, and big-data analytics, and their optimization for the life sciences, has opened doors to new opportunities for a broad plant science research community to develop step change solutions to bridge the gap between traits of interest and genomic information for novel biological discoveries (Tardieu et al., 2017; Zhao et al., 2019). In particular, recent developments in multi-factorial phenotypic models can be dynamically generated from large biological datasets to characterize phenotypic features, including the prediction of genotypic reaction to complex environments as well as genotype-based phenotypic changes across multiple seasons (Großkinsky et al., 2015; Furbank et al., 2019). Such methodological and technical advances have empowered plant scientists to unravel the genetics of complex phenotypes at the levels of cell, organ, tissue, plant, and population (Fiorani and Schurr, 2013).
Editorial: State-of-the-Art Technology and Applications in Crop Phenomics
Rising temperatures due to climate change threaten agricultural crop productivity. As a cool-season crop, wheat is heat-sensitive, but often exposed to high temperatures during the cultivation period. In the current study, a bread wheat panel of spring wheat genotypes, including putatively heat-tolerant Australian and CIMMYT genotypes, was exposed to a 5-day mild (34°C/28°C, day/night) or extreme (37°C/27°C) heat stress during the sensitive pollen developmental stage. Worsening effects on anther morphology were observed, as heat stress increased from mild to extreme. Even under mild heat, a significant decrease in pollen viability and number of grains per spike from primary spike was observed compared with the control (21°C/15°C), with Sunstar and two CIMMYT breeding lines performing well. A heat-specific positive correlation between the two traits indicates the important role of pollen fertility for grain setting. Interestingly, both mild and extreme heat induced development of new tillers after the heat stress, providing an alternative sink for accumulated photosynthates and significantly contributing to the final yield. Measurements of flag leaf maximum potential quantum efficiency of photosystem II (Fv/Fm) showed an initial inhibition after the heat treatment, followed by a full recovery within a few days. Despite this, model fitting using chlorophyll soil plant analysis development (SPAD) measurements showed an earlier onset or faster senescence rate under heat stress. The data presented here provide interesting entry points for further research into pollen fertility, tillering dynamics, and leaf senescence under heat. The identified heat-tolerant wheat genotypes can be used to dissect the underlying mechanisms and breed climate-resilient wheat.
The Effects of Brief Heat During Early Booting on Reproductive, Developmental, and Chlorophyll Physiological Performance in Common Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)
One of the major challenges facing rice breeding is to produce ideotype or ideal plant architecture (IPA) to improve canopy radiation use efficiency and hence grain yield. The hybrid japonica rice Jiayou Zhongke 6 (JYZK-6) is one of the benchmark cultivars with IPA characteristics, but the physio-ecological foundation of its high yield potential is still imperfectly understood. In this study, two-year field experiments were conducted using four japonica rice cultivars including JYZK-6 with contrasting canopy structures. A dynamic canopy light interception simulating device was constructed to capture canopy images representing the diurnal dynamics of solar angles throughout the grain-filling stage. Subsequently, leaf to panicle ratio (LPR), a newly developed physiological trait indicative of source-sink relations, was exploited to quantify the light distribution pattern within the rice canopy. The LPRs with high spatio-temporal resolution clearly showed the diurnal changes of light interception within the rice canopy. Genotypic differences in diurnal pattern of LPR were detected among the tested cultivars in both growing seasons, with the amplitude varying with grain-filling stages. Notably, LPR of the IPA cultivar JYZK-6 and its analogue WYJ-29, had a pattern of a V-shaped graph, peaking at sunrise and sunset while dropping to the lowest at noon during middle and late stages. Morphological measurement showed that the V-shaped pattern was associated with the height difference between flag leaf and panicle, panicle curvature, ratio of leaf area to panicle area, as well as the changing solar angles along with the progression of growth stage. This distinguishing feature of light pattern indicates that within the canopy of IPA cultivars, the leaf receives more light in the morning and afternoon whereas the panicle harvests more light at noon. It is inferred that such novel characteristics may provide the IPA cultivar with advantages of reducing midday suppression over the conventional cultivars, while more work is needed to verify this hypothesis. In summary, findings of this study offer a deeper insight into the physio-ecological processes underpinning radiation use efficiency at canopy level, and hence are valuable for breeding programs for ideotype cultivars.
A novel light interception trait of a hybrid rice ideotype indicative of leaf to panicle ratio
Segregation distortion (SD) is common in most genetic mapping experiments and a valuable resource to determine how gene loci induce deviation. Meiotic DNA crossing over and SD are under the control of several types of epigenetic modifications. DNA methylation is an important regulatory epigenetic modification that is inherited across generations. In the present study, we investigated the relationship between SD and DNA methylation. The ecotypes Col-0/C24 and chromatin remodeler mutants ddm1-10/Col and ddm1-15/C24 were reciprocally crossed to obtain F2 generations. A total of 300 plants for each reciprocally crossed plant in the F2 generations were subjected to next-generation sequencing to detect the single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as DNA markers. All SNPs were analyzed using the Chi-square test method to determine their segregation ratio in F2 generations. Through the segregation ratio, whole-genome SNPs were classified into 16 classes. In class 10, the SNPs in the reciprocal crosses of wild type showed the expected Mendelian ratio of 1:2:1, while those in the reciprocal crosses of ddm1 mutants showed distortion. In contrast, all SNPs in class 16 displayed a normal 1:2:1 ratio, and class 1 showed SD, regardless of wild type or mutants, as assessed using CAPS (cleaved amplified polymorphic sequences) marker analysis to confirm the next-generation sequencing. In ddm1 mutants, the DNA methylation is highly reduced throughout the whole genome and more significantly in the heterochromatic regions of chromosomes. Our results showed that the ddm1 mutants exhibit low levels of DNA methylation, which facilitates the SD of SNPs primarily located in the heterochromatic region of chromosomes by reducing the heterozygous ratio. The present study will provide a strong base for future research focusing on the impact of DNA methylation on trait segregation and plant evolution.
Loss of chromatin remodeler DDM1 causes segregation distortion in Arabidopsis thaliana
[{"name":"Ma, D", "type":"first", "affiliation":"Institute of Hydrology and Water Resources, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, PR China"}, {"name":"Jing, Q", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Ottawa Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, ON K1A 0C6, Canada"}, {"name":"Xu, YP", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Hydrology and Water Resources, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, PR China"}, {"name":"Cannon, AJ", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Climate Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Victoria, BC V8W 3R4, Canada"}, {"name":"Dong, T", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Ottawa Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, ON K1A 0C6, Canada"}, {"name":"Semenov, MA", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Hertfordshire AL5 2JQ, UK"}, {"name":"Qian, B", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Ottawa Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, ON K1A 0C6, Canada"}]
Do ancient wheats contain less gluten than modern bread wheat, in favour of better health?
Genome editing techniques, such as the CRISPR/Cas9 system, offer a game-changing opportunity for crop improvement by enabling precise modifications to be made at targeted genomic loci. The CRISPR/Cas9 system has been employed successfully in many plant species; however, in order to use the system to its full potential, it is important to understand precisely how it functions and the factors that may limit its effectiveness. The mechanistic details of Cas9-induced double-strand breaks (DSBs), that underpin the mutational ability of the system, have been well-described. It also is known that the efficiency of editing varies for different target sequences. However, the impact of epigenetic modifications on CRISPR/Cas9 efficacy and subsequent DNA repair is poorly understood, especially in plants.
Epigenetic switch reveals CRISPR/Cas9 response to cytosine methylation in plants
[{"name":"Wilkinson, Mark D.", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kosik, Ondrej", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Halsey, Kirstie", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Walpole, Hannah", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Evans, Jessica", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Wood, Abigail J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Ward, Jane L.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Mitchell, Rowan A. C.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Lovegrove, Alison", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Shewry, Peter R.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Using climate scenarios from only 1 or a small number of global climate models (GCMs) in climate change impact studies may lead to biased assessment due to large uncertainty in climate projections. Ensemble means in impact projections derived from a multi-GCM ensemble are often used as best estimates to reduce bias. However, it is often time consuming to run process-based models (e.g. hydrological and crop models) in climate change impact studies using numerous climate scenarios. It would be interesting to investigate if using a reduced number of climate scenarios could lead to a reasonable estimate of the ensemble mean. In this study, we generated a single ensemble-mean climate scenario (En-WG scenario) using ensemble means of the change factors derived from 20 GCMs included in CMIP5 to perturb the parameters in a weather generator, LARS-WG, for selected locations across Canada. We used En-WG scenarios to drive crop growth models in DSSAT ver. 4.7 to simulate crop yields for canola and spring wheat under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission scenarios. We evaluated the potential of using the En-WG scenarios to simulate crop yields by comparing them with crop yields simulated with the LARS-WG generated climate scenarios based on each of the 20 GCMs (WG scenarios). Our results showed that simulated crop yields using the En-WG scenarios were often close to the ensemble means of simulated crop yields using the 20 WG scenarios with a high probability of outperforming simulations based on a randomly selected GCM. Further studies are required, as the results of the proposed approach may be influenced by selected crop types, crop models, weather generators, and GCM ensembles.
Using ensemble-mean climate scenarios for future crop yield projections: a stochastic weather generator approach
RNA interference (RNAi) is a method of gene silencing where dsRNA is digested into small interfering RNA (siRNA) in the presence of enzymes. These siRNAs then target homologous mRNA sequences aided by the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). The mechanism of dsRNA uptake has been well studied and established across many living organisms including insects. In insects, RNAi is a novel and potential tool to develop future pest management means targeting various classes of insects including dipterans, coleopterans, hemipterans, lepidopterans, hymenopterans and isopterans. However, the extent of RNAi in individual class varies due to underlying mechanisms. The present review focuses on three major insect classes viz hemipterans, lepidopterans and coleopterans and the rationale behind this lies in the fact that studies pertaining to RNAi has been extensively performed in these groups. Additionally, these classes harbour major agriculturally important pest species which require due attention. Interestingly, all the three classes exhibit varying levels of RNAi efficiencies with the coleopterans exhibiting maximum response, while hemipterans are relatively inefficient. Lepidopterans on the other hand, show minimum response to RNAi. This has been attributed to many facts and few important being endosomal escape, high activity dsRNA-specific nucleases, and highly alkaline gut environment which renders the dsRNA unstable. Various methods have been established to ensure safe delivery of dsRNA into the biological system of the insect. The most common method for dsRNA administration is supplementing the diet of insects via spraying onto leaves and other commonly eaten parts of the plant. This method is environment-friendly and superior to the hazardous effects of pesticides. Another method involves submergence of root systems in dsRNA solutions and subsequent uptake by the phloem. Additionally, more recent techniques are nanoparticle- and Agrobacterium -mediated delivery systems. However, due to the novelty of these biotechnological methods and recalcitrant nature of certain crops, further optimization is required. This review emphasizes on RNAi developments in agriculturally important insect species and the major hurdles for efficient RNAi in these groups. The review also discusses in detail the development of new techniques to enhance RNAi efficiency using liposomes and nanoparticles, transplastomics, microbial-mediated delivery and chemical methods.
Next Generation dsRNA-Based Insect Control: Success So Far and Challenges
Abstract Aegilops tauschii , the diploid wild progenitor of the D subgenome of bread wheat, is a reservoir of genetic diversity for improving bread wheat performance and environmental resilience. Here we sequenced 242 Ae. tauschii accessions and compared them to the wheat D subgenome to characterize genomic diversity. We found that a rare lineage of Ae. tauschii geographically restricted to present-day Georgia contributed to the wheat D subgenome in the independent hybridizations that gave rise to modern bread wheat. Through k -mer-based association mapping, we identified discrete genomic regions with candidate genes for disease and pest resistance and demonstrated their functional transfer into wheat by transgenesis and wide crossing, including the generation of a library of hexaploids incorporating diverse Ae. tauschii genomes. Exploiting the genomic diversity of the Ae. tauschii ancestral diploid genome permits rapid trait discovery and functional genetic validation in a hexaploid background amenable to breeding.
Population genomic analysis of Aegilops tauschii identifies targets for bread wheat improvement
Observations from animal and in vitro laboratory research, and anecdotal evidence, have led to the suggestion that gluten consumption stimulates weight gain by the presence of peptides expressing opioid activity. Another proposed mechanism is that gluten peptides decrease resting energy expenditure resulting in a positive energy balance. In order to induce such effects in vivo, intact food peptides must be absorbed in sufficient quantities, remain intact in the blood for sufficient time to have long-lasting biological activity and bind to receptors involved in appetite, satiety and energy regulation. However, although peptides from food may pass from the intestine into the blood in extremely low quantities, they are generally rapidly degraded by plasma and vasculum-bound aminopeptidases, resulting in very short half-lives and loss of bioactivity. At present, gluten peptide sequences that influence regulators of energy metabolism have not been identified. Furthermore, data on the quantitative absorption of gluten peptides in the blood stream, their stability and lasting bioactivity are also lacking. Therefore, there is no evidence for proposed effects on driving appetite by the brain, nor on energy expenditure and weight gain. Furthermore, the level of overweight observed in various countries appears to be independent of the level of wheat consumption, and abundant observational evidence in humans shows that the levels of gluten consumption are neither related to daily calorie intake nor to BMI. This narrative review therefore discusses the proposed effects of gluten on bodyweight (BW) and putative biological mechanisms in the light of the current evidence.
Do gluten peptides stimulate weight gain in humans?
[{"name":"Sheraz, Sadia", "type":"first", "affiliation":"School of Materials and Photon Science Institute University of Manchester ManchesterM13 9PLUK"}, {"name":"Wan, Yongfang", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Plant Sciences Rothamsted Research HarpendenAL5 2JQUK"}, {"name":"Venter, Eudri", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Bioimaging facility Department of Computational and Analytical Sciences Rothamsted Research HarpendenAL5 2JQUK"}, {"name":"Verma, Shailender K.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biological Chemistry John Innes Centre NorwichNR4 7UHUK"}, {"name":"Xiong, Qing", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biological Chemistry John Innes Centre NorwichNR4 7UHUK"}, {"name":"Waites, Joshua", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biological Chemistry John Innes Centre NorwichNR4 7UHUK"}, {"name":"Connorton, James M.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biological Chemistry John Innes Centre NorwichNR4 7UHUK"}, {"name":"Shewry, Peter R.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Plant Sciences Rothamsted Research HarpendenAL5 2JQUK"}, {"name":"Moore, Katie L.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"School of Materials and Photon Science Institute University of Manchester ManchesterM13 9PLUK"}, {"name":"Balk, Janneke", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biological Chemistry John Innes Centre NorwichNR4 7UHUK"}]
[{"name":"Snell, Per", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Wilkinson, Mark", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Taylor, Gavin J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hall, Stephen", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Sharma, Shrikant", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Sirijovski, Nick", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hansson, Mats", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Shewry, Peter R.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hofvander, Per", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Grimberg, Åsa", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Plants have developed intricate defense mechanisms, referred to as innate immunity, to defend themselves against a wide range of pathogens. Plants often respond rapidly to pathogen attack by the synthesis and delivery of various antimicrobial compounds, proteins and small RNA in membrane vesicles to the primary infection sites. Much of the evidence regarding the importance of vesicular trafficking in plant-pathogen interactions comes from the studies involving model plants whereas this process is relatively understudied in crop plants. Here we assessed whether the vesicular trafficking system components previously implicated in immunity in Arabidopsis thaliana play a role in the interaction with Fusarium graminearum , a fungal pathogen notoriously famous for its ability to cause Fusarium head blight (FHB) disease in wheat. Among the analyzed vesicular trafficking mutants, two independent T-DNA insertion mutants in the AtMin7 gene displayed a markedly enhanced susceptibility to F. graminearum . Earlier studies identified this gene, encoding an ARF-GEF protein, as a target for the HopM1 effector of the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato , which destabilizes AtMIN7 leading to its degradation and weakening host defenses. To test whether this key vesicular trafficking component may also contribute to defense in crop plants, we identified the candidate TaMin7 genes in wheat and knocked-down their expression through Virus induced gene silencing. Wheat plants in which TaMIN7 were silenced displayed significantly more FHB disease. This suggests that disruption of MIN7 function in both model and crop plants compromises the trafficking of innate immunity signals or products resulting in hyper-susceptibility to various pathogens. One sentence summary : Disruption of an ARF-GEF protein encoding gene AtMin7 in Arabidopsis thaliana and silencing of the orthologous gene in wheat result in hyper susceptibility to the fungal pathogen Fusarium graminearum .
The vesicular trafficking system component MIN7 is required for minimizing Fusarium graminearum infection
[{"type": "first", "name": "Wan, Yongfang"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Stewart, Theodora"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Amrahli, Maral"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Evans, Jessica"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Sharp, Paul"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Govindan, Velu"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Hawkesford, Malcolm J."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Shewry, Peter R."}]
Global food security requires food production to be increased in the coming decades. The closure of any existing genetic yield gap (Yig) by genetic improvement could increase crop yield potential and global production. Here we estimated present global wheat Yig, covering all wheat-growing environments and major producers, by optimizing local wheat cultivars using the wheat model Sirius. The estimated mean global Yig was 51%, implying that global wheat production could benefit greatly from exploiting the untapped global Yig through the use of optimal cultivar designs, utilization of the vast variation available in wheat genetic resources, application of modern advanced breeding tools, and continuous improvements of crop and soil management.
Global wheat production could benefit from closing the genetic yield gap
Open Data Journal for Agricultural Research
[{"type": "first", "name": "Hayes, Pat"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Howitt, Crispin A."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Shewry, Peter R."}]
Wheat is a major staple food crop worldwide because of the unique properties of wheat flour. High molecular weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GSs), which are among the most critical determinants of wheat flour quality, are responsible for the formation of glutenin polymeric structures via interchain disulfide bonds. We herein describe the identification of a new HMW-GS Dy10 allele (Dy10-m619SN). The amino acid substitution (serine-to-asparagine) encoded in this allele resulted in a partial post-translational cleavage that produced two new peptides. These new peptides disrupted the interactions among gluten proteins because of the associated changes to the number of available cysteine residues for interchain disulfide bonds. Consequently, Dy10-m619SN expression decreased the size of glutenin polymers and weakened glutens, which resulted in wheat dough with improved cookie-making quality, without changes to the glutenin-to-gliadin ratio. In this study, we clarified the post-translational processing of HMW-GSs and revealed a new genetic resource useful for wheat breeding.
Post-translational cleavage of HMW-GS Dy10 allele improves the cookie-making quality in common wheat (Triticum aestivum)
[{"name":"Ober, Eric S.", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Alahmad, Samir", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Cockram, James", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Forestan, Cristian", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hickey, Lee T.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kant, Josefine", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Maccaferri, Marco", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Marr, Emily", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Milner, Matthew", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Pinto, Francisco", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Rambla, Charlotte", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Reynolds, Matthew", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Salvi, Silvio", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Sciara, Giuseppe", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Snowdon, Rod J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Thomelin, Pauline", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Tuberosa, Roberto", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Uauy, Cristobal", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Voss-Fels, Kai P.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Wallington, Emma", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Watt, Michelle", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Soil compaction constrains root growth and crop yield. Previous studies have shown that localized nutrient supply can significantly improve maize plant growth in field conditions at the early growth stage. However, this promoting effect has not been tested in the compacted soil. We describe 2-year field experimentation on a fluvo-aquic soil in the North China Plain to investigate the effect of localized vs. broadcast ammonium and phosphorus supply on maize under three soil compaction treatments (NC: non-compacted, C: compacted and SC: severely compacted) during 2012 and 2013. Results showed that compared with broadcast ammonium and phosphorus (BNP), localized ammonium and phosphorus supply (LNP) resulted in significantly higher PFPN in the NC (by 31–37%), C (by 43–44%) and SC (by 45%) treatments at harvest. When soil was compacted (C and SC), the enhancement of nitrogen (N) utilization in the LNP treatment was attributed to the increased root growth, including greater specific root length (a greater proportion of fine roots), lower root tissue density and deeper rooting at the seedling stage, especially in the compacted treatment (C). The enhanced root penetration capacity contributed to the increased N and water uptake from the deep soil layers. Our study highlighted the importance of nutrient management for mitigating negative impacts of soil compaction on crops, and will underpin new soil compaction management practices by considering optimal fertilization to strengthen the root-soil interactions.
Localized nutrient supply can facilitate root proliferation and increase nitrogen-use efficiency in compacted soil
[{"name":"Oddy, Joseph", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Alarcón-Reverte, Rocío", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Wilkinson, Mark", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Ravet, Karl", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Raffan, Sarah", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Minter, Andrea", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Mead, Andrew", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Elmore, J. Stephen", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"de Almeida, Isabel Moreira", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Cryer, Nicholas C.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Halford, Nigel G.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Pearce, Stephen", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"name":"Tremmel-Bede, Karolina", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Szentmiklóssy, Marietta", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Lampi, Anna-Maija", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Piironen, Vieno", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Shewry, Peter R.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Vida, Gyula", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Tömösközi, Sándor", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Karsai, Ildikó", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Láng, László", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Bedő, Zoltán", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Rakszegi, Marianna", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Abstract Plants respond to mild warm temperature conditions by increased elongation growth of organs to enhance cooling capacity, in a process called thermomorphogenesis. To this date, the regulation of thermomorphogenesis has been exclusively shown to intersect with light signalling pathways. To identify regulators of thermomorphogenesis that are conserved in flowering plants, we map changes in protein phosphorylation in both dicots and monocots exposed to warm temperature. We identify MITOGEN-ACTIVATED PROTEIN KINASE KINASE KINASE KINASE4 (MAP4K4)/TARGET OF TEMPERATURE3 (TOT3) as a regulator of thermomorphogenesis that impinges on brassinosteroid signalling in Arabidopsis thaliana . In addition, we show that TOT3 plays a role in thermal response in wheat, a monocot crop. Altogether, the conserved thermal regulation by TOT3 expands our knowledge of thermomorphogenesis beyond the well-studied pathways and can contribute to ensuring food security under a changing climate.
The membrane-localized protein kinase MAP4K4/TOT3 regulates thermomorphogenesis
Phosphorylation of the α-subunit of eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (eIF2α) and subsequent inhibition of protein synthesis is a major survival response to different stresses in animal and yeast cells. However, the role of this regulatory mechanism in plants is not unambiguously established to date. Here we describe a slight reduction of polysome abundance in Nicotiana benthamiana after the transient expression of a cDNA, AteIF2α(S56D), encoding a phosphomimetic form of Arabidopsis thaliana eIF2α. In contrast, the expression of a cDNA, AteIF2α(S56A), that encodes a non-phosphorylatable form of AteIF2α caused slightly elevated polysome formation compared to the control. Recombinant AteIF2α(S56A) was detected in association with 40S ribosomal subunit-containing complexes and also in the polysomal fraction, while recombinant AteIF2α(S56D) was detected mainly in complex with 40S subunits. Intentional phosphorylation of TaeIF2α induced by L-histidinol in a wheat germ (Triticum aestivum) cell-free extract did not reduce the abundance of polysomes. Interestingly, the phosphorylated TaeIF2(αP) was not detected in the polysomal fraction, similar to AteIF2α(S56D) in the in vivo experiment. Using mRNAs with a ‘Strepto-tag’ in the 3′ untranslated region, the 48S pre-initiation complexes isolated from histidinol-treated wheat germ extracts were shown to contain phosphorylated TaeIF2(αP). Thus, the phosphorylation of plant eIF2 does not greatly affect its ability to participate in the initiation of mRNA translation, in contrast to animals and yeast, in which eIF2α phosphorylation results in profound suppression of protein synthesis.
Phosphorylation of the alpha-subunit of plant eukaryotic initiation factor 2 prevents its association with polysomes but does not considerably suppress protein synthesis
[{"name":"Simon, Amma L.", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Caulfield, John C.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hammond-Kosack, Kim E.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Field, Linda M.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Aradottir, Gudbjorg I.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
The long-term increasing trend of annual mean temperature is only one aspect of recent climate change. Other changes in climate, seen in within-year weather patterns relevant to crop production, have also occurred since the late-19th Century. Multivariate analysis combining Principal Components Analysis and K-means clustering applied to temporal meteorological datasets (monthly summaries of rainfall, temperature and sunlight duration at Rothamsted Research, UK, between 1892 and 2016) identified ten distinct clusters of years, each with different annual weather patterns. The frequency of occurrence of the years within each cluster altered considerably during this period, with the late 20th and early 21st Century distinctly different to earlier in the 20th Century, providing clear evidence of climate change with regard to the whole weather profile rather than just warming alone. The most-frequently represented cluster of the 21st Century to date had warmer temperatures with more intense rainfall but a dry June, compared to all other clusters. Half of the clusters identified were not represented in the most-recent 25-year period. Analysis of the total biomass yield of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), and grassland amongst the different weather clusters showed that years in clusters typical of the 20th Century climate provided greater off-take than those from the early-21st Century, but this impact was less for the pasture than for the two cereal crops implying herbage production was the more resilient to the changing climate at this site.
Changes in agricultural climate in South-Eastern England from 1892 to 2016 and differences in cereal and permanent grassland yield
[{"type": "first", "name": "Kim, Juhyun"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Park, Jihye"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Kim, Heejin"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Son, Namil"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Kim, Eun‐Jung"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Kim, Jaeil"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Byun, Dohwan"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Lee, Youngkyung"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Park, Yeong Mi"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Nageswaran, Divyashree C"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Kuo, Pallas"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Rose, Teresa"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Dang, Tuong Vi T"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Hwang, Ildoo"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Lambing, Christophe"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Henderson, Ian R"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Choi, Kyuha"}]
Creating varieties with high nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is crucial for sustainable agriculture development. In this study, a superior barley doubled haploid line (named DH45) with improved NUE was produced via F1 microspore embryogenesis with three rounds of screening in different nitrogen levels by hydroponic and field experiments. The molecular mechanisms responsible for the NUE of DH45 surpassing that of its parents were investigated by RNA-seq analysis. A total of 1027 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified that were up- or down-regulated in DH45 under low nitrogen conditions but showed no significant differences in the parents. GO analysis indicated that genes involved in nitrogen compound metabolic processes were significantly enriched in DH45 compared with the parents. KEGG analysis showed the MAPK signaling pathway plant to be highly enriched in DH45 relative to its parents, as well as genes involved in alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, and arginine biosynthesis. In conclusion, our study revealed the potential to fix trait superiority in a line by combining crossing with F1 microspore culture technologies in future crop breeding and also identified several candidate genes that are expressed in shoots and may enable barley to cope with low-nitrogen stress.
Rapid Generation and Analysis of a Barley Doubled Haploid Line with Higher Nitrogen Use Efficiency Than Parental Lines by F1 Microspore Embryogenesis
Journal of Chemical Technology & Biotechnology
ABSTRACT There are now a rich variety of genomic and genotypic resources available to wheat researchers and breeders. However, the generation of high-quality and field-relevant phenotyping data which is required to capture the complexities of gene x environment interactions remains a major bottleneck. Historical datasets from national variety performance trials (NVPT) provide sufficient dimensions, in terms of numbers of years and locations, to examine phenotypic trends and study gene x environment interactions. Using NVPT for winter wheat varieties grown in the UK between 2002 – 2017, we examined temporal trends for eight traits related to yield, adaptation, and grain quality performance. We show a non-stationary linear trend for yield, grain protein content, HFN and days to ripening. Our data also show high environmental stability for yield, grain protein content and specific weight in UK winter wheat varieties and high environmental sensitivity for Hagberg Falling Number. Using the historical NVPT data in a genome-wide association analysis, we uncovered a significant marker-trait association peak on wheat chromosome 6A spanning the NAM-A1 gene that have been previously associated with early senescence. Together our results show the value of utilizing the data routinely collected during variety evaluation process for examining breeding progress and the genetic architecture of important traits.
Trend, Population Structure and Trait Mapping from 15 Years of National Varietal Trials of UK Winter Wheat
[{"name":"Stephens, Christopher", "type":"first", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection Rothamsted Research Harpenden UK"}, {"name":"Ölmez, Fatih", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Plant Protection Sivas Science and Technology University Sivas Turkey"}, {"name":"Blyth, Hannah", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection Rothamsted Research Harpenden UK"}, {"name":"McDonald, Megan", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Division of Plant Sciences Research School of Biology Australian National University Canberra Australia"}, {"name":"Bansal, Anuradha", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection Rothamsted Research Harpenden UK"}, {"name":"Turgay, Emine Burcu", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Plant Pathology Plant Protection Central Research Institute Field Crops Central Research Institute Ankara Turkey"}, {"name":"Hahn, Florian", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Plant Sciences Rothamsted Research Harpenden UK"}, {"name":"Saintenac, Cyrille", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Université Clermont AuvergneINRAEGDEC Clermont‐Ferrand France"}, {"name":"Nekrasov, Vladimir", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Plant Sciences Rothamsted Research Harpenden UK"}, {"name":"Solomon, Peter", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Division of Plant Sciences Research School of Biology Australian National University Canberra Australia"}, {"name":"Milgate, Andrew", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"NSW Department of Primary IndustriesWagga Wagga Agricultural Institute Wagga Wagga Australia"}, {"name":"Fraaije, Bart", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection Rothamsted Research Harpenden UK"}, {"name":"Rudd, Jason", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection Rothamsted Research Harpenden UK"}, {"name":"Kanyuka, Kostya", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection Rothamsted Research Harpenden UK"}]
Interaction between the embryo and endosperm affects seed development, an essential process in yield formation in crops such as rice. Signals that mediate communication between embryo and endosperm are largely unknown. We used the notched-belly (NB) mutant with impaired communication between embryo and endosperm to investigate the effect of the embryo on developmental staging of the endosperm and signaling pathways in the embryo that regulate endosperm development. Hierachical clustering of mRNA datasets from embryo and endosperm samples collected during development in NB and a wild type showed a delaying effect of the embryo on the developmental transition of the endosperm by extension of the middle stage. K-means clustering further identified coexpression modules of gene sets specific to embryo and endosperm development. Combined gene expression and biochemical analysis showed that T6P–SnRK1, gibberellin and auxin signaling by the embryo regulate endosperm developmental transition. We propose a new seed developmental staging system for rice and identify the most detailed signature of rice grain formation to date. These will direct genetic strategies for rice yield improvement.
Integration of embryo–endosperm interaction into a holistic and dynamic picture of seed development using a rice mutant with notched-belly kernels
Diabetes mellitus is a chronic condition characterized by increased blood glucose levels from dysfunctional carbohydrate metabolism. Dietary intervention can help to prevent and manage the disease. Food hydrocolloids have been shown to have favorable properties in relation to glycaemic regulation. However, the use of food hydrocolloids of bacterial origin to modulate glucose responses is much less explored than other types of hydrocolloids. We, therefore, carried out the first review examining the impact of intake of food hydrocolloids of bacterial origin (as a direct supplement or incorporated into foods) on glycemic response in humans. Fourteen studies met the inclusion criteria. They used either xanthan gum, pullulan, or dextran as interventions. There was a wide variation in the amount of hydrocolloid supplementation provided and methods of preparation. Postprandial blood glucose responses were reduced in half of the studies, particularly at higher intake levels and longer chain hydrocolloids. When xanthan gum was added to the cooking process of muffins and rice, a significant reduction in postprandial blood glucose was observed. The use of these hydrocolloids is potentially effective though more research is needed in this area.
Effect of Intake of Food Hydrocolloids of Bacterial Origin on the Glycemic Response in Humans: Systematic Review and Narrative Synthesis
[{"name":"Dueri, Sibylle", "type":"first", "affiliation":"LEPSE, Univ. Montpellier, INRAE, Institut Agro Montpellier , Montpellier , France"}, {"name":"Brown, Hamish", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"The New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Limited , Christchurch , New Zealand"}, {"name":"Asseng, Senthold", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Life Science Engineering, Digital Agriculture, Technical University of Munich , Freising , Germany"}, {"name":"Ewert, Frank", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation INRES, University of Bonn , Bonn , Germany"}, {"name":"Webber, Heidi", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research , Müncheberg , Germany"}, {"name":"George, Mike", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"The New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Limited , Christchurch , New Zealand"}, {"name":"Craigie, Rob", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Foundation for Arable Research , Templeton , New Zealand"}, {"name":"Guarin, Jose Rafael", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Agricultural & Biological Engineering Department, University of Florida , Gainesville, FL , USA"}, {"name":"Pequeno, Diego N L", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) , Mexico DF , Mexico"}, {"name":"Stella, Tommaso", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation INRES, University of Bonn , Bonn , Germany"}, {"name":"Ahmed, Mukhtar", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Agronomy, Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University , Rawalpindi , Pakistan"}, {"name":"Alderman, Phillip D", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Oklahoma State University , Stillwater, OK , USA"}, {"name":"Basso, Bruno", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Michigan State University , East Lansing, MI , USA"}, {"name":"Berger, Andres G", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"National Institute of Agricultural Research (INIA) , Colonia , Uruguay"}, {"name":"Mujica, Gennady Bracho", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Tropical Plant Production and Agricultural Systems Modelling (TROPAGS), University of Göttingen , Göttingen , Germany"}, {"name":"Cammarano, Davide", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University , Tjele , Denmark"}, {"name":"Chen, Yi", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Science , Beijing , China"}, {"name":"Dumont, Benjamin", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Plant Sciences Axis – Crop Science, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liege , Gembloux , Belgium"}, {"name":"Rezaei, Ehsan Eyshi", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research , Müncheberg , Germany"}, {"name":"Fereres, Elias", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"IAS-CSIC & DAUCO, University of Cordoba , Cordoba , Spain"}, {"name":"Ferrise, Roberto", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Agriculture, food, environment and forestry (DAGRI), University of Florence , Florence , Italy"}, {"name":"Gaiser, Thomas", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation INRES, University of Bonn , Bonn , Germany"}, {"name":"Gao, Yujing", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Agricultural & Biological Engineering Department, University of Florida , Gainesville, FL , USA"}, {"name":"Garcia-Vila, Margarita", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"IAS-CSIC & DAUCO, University of Cordoba , Cordoba , Spain"}, {"name":"Gayler, Sebastian", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Soil Science and Land Evaluation, University of Hohenheim , Stuttgart , Germany"}, {"name":"Hochman, Zvi", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"CSIRO Agriculture and Food , Brisbane, Queensland , Australia"}, {"name":"Hoogenboom, Gerrit", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Agricultural & Biological Engineering Department, University of Florida , Gainesville, FL , USA"}, {"name":"Kersebaum, Kurt C", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research , Müncheberg , Germany"}, {"name":"Nendel, Claas", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research , Müncheberg , Germany"}, {"name":"Olesen, Jørgen E", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University , Tjele , Denmark"}, {"name":"Padovan, Gloria", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Agriculture, food, environment and forestry (DAGRI), University of Florence , Florence , Italy"}, {"name":"Palosuo, Taru", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) , Helsinki , Finland"}, {"name":"Priesack, Eckart", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Biochemical Plant Pathology, Helmholtz Zentrum München—German Research Center for Environmental Health , Neuherberg , Germany"}, {"name":"Pullens, Johannes W M", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University , Tjele , Denmark"}, {"name":"Rodríguez, Alfredo", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"CEIGRAM, Technical University of Madrid , Madrid , Spain"}, {"name":"Rötter, Reimund P", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Tropical Plant Production and Agricultural Systems Modelling (TROPAGS), University of Göttingen , Göttingen , Germany"}, {"name":"Ramos, Margarita Ruiz", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"CEIGRAM, Technical University of Madrid , Madrid , Spain"}, {"name":"Semenov, Mikhail A", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Rothamsted Research , Harpenden , UK"}, {"name":"Senapati, Nimai", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Rothamsted Research , Harpenden , UK"}, {"name":"Siebert, Stefan", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Centre of Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use (CBL), University of Göttingen , Göttingen , Germany"}, {"name":"Srivastava, Amit Kumar", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation INRES, University of Bonn , Bonn , Germany"}, {"name":"Stöckle, Claudio", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Biological Systems Engineering, Washington State University , Pullman, WA , USA"}, {"name":"Supit, Iwan", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Water Systems & Global Change Group, Wageningen University , Wageningen , The Netherlands"}, {"name":"Tao, Fulu", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Science , Beijing , China"}, {"name":"Thorburn, Peter", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"CSIRO Agriculture and Food , Brisbane, Queensland , Australia"}, {"name":"Wang, Enli", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Canberra , Australian Capital Territory , Australia"}, {"name":"Weber, Tobias Karl David", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Soil Science and Land Evaluation, University of Hohenheim , Stuttgart , Germany"}, {"name":"Xiao, Liujun", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University , Hangzhou, Zhejiang , China"}, {"name":"Zhao, Chuang", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University , Beijing , China"}, {"name":"Zhao, Jin", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University , Tjele , Denmark"}, {"name":"Zhao, Zhigan", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Canberra , Australian Capital Territory , Australia"}, {"name":"Zhu, Yan", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"National Engineering and Technology Center for Information Agriculture, Key Laboratory for Crop System Analysis and Decision Making, Ministry of Agriculture, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Information Agriculture, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Modern Crop Production, Nanjing Agricultural University , Nanjing , China"}, {"name":"Martre, Pierre", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"LEPSE, Univ. Montpellier, INRAE, Institut Agro Montpellier , Montpellier , France"}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "WANG, Yan"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "GUO, Zhen-ru"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "CHEN, Qing"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "LI, Yang"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "ZHAO, Kan"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "WAN, Yong-fang"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "HAWKESFORD, Malcolm J."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "JIANG, Yun-feng"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "KONG, Li"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "PU, Zhi-en"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "DENG, Mei"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "JIANG, Qian-tao"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "LAN, Xiu-jin"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "WANG, Ji-rui"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "CHEN, Guo-yue"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "MA, Jian"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "ZHENG, You-liang"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "WEI, Yu-ming"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "QI, Peng-fei"}]
Crop breeding for high nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) or tolerance to low nitrogen fertilization is thought to be an ideal solution to reduce the cost, carbon footprint, and other environmental problems caused by the excess use of nitrogen fertilizers. As a model plant for cereal crops, barley has many advantages, including good adaptability, a short growth period, and high natural stress resistance or tolerance. Therefore, research on improving NUE in barley is not only beneficial for nitrogen-efficient barley breeding but will also inform NUE improvement in other cereal crops. In this review, recent progress in understanding barley’s response to nitrogen nutrition, evaluation of NUE or low-nitrogen tolerance, quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping and gene cloning associated with improving NUE, and breeding of nitrogen-efficient barley is summarized. Furthermore, several biotechnological tools that could be used for revealing the molecular mechanisms of NUE or breeding for improving NUE in barley are introduced, including GWAS, omics, and gene editing. The latest research ideas in unraveling the molecular mechanisms of improving NUE in other crops are also discussed. Thus, this review provides a better understanding of improving the NUE of barley and some directions for future research in this area.
Advances in Barley Breeding for Improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency
The simulated data set described in this paper was created by an ensemble of nine different crop models: HERMES (HE), Simplace<Lintul5,Slim3, FAO-56 ET0> (L5), SiriusQuality (SQ), MONICA (MO), Sirius2014 (S2), FASSET (FA), 4M (4M), SSM (SS), DSSAT-CSM IXIM (IX). Simulations were performed for grain maize (six models) and winter wheat (eight models) under diverse conditions over agriculturally relevant areas in the EU-27 at a 25 x 25 km spatial resolution. Simulations were drawn from combinations of three representative concentration pathways and climate outputs from five general circulation models for time periods 2040-2069 and 2070-2099. Historical climate data was the basis for simulation years 1980-2010 and considered as a baseline. Simulation results from 1980-2010 and 2040-2069 were used to analyze crop responses to changing climatic variables and their diverging sensitivities to these variables. This data paper describes the creation, motivation and format of the simulation results to enable others to use the data set.
Pan-European multi-crop model ensemble simulations of wheat and grain maize under climate change scenarios
[{"type": "first", "name": "Paul, Matthew J."}]
[{"name":"Brouns, Fred", "type":"first", "affiliation":"NUTRIM‐School for Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism Maastricht University Maastricht The Netherlands"}, {"name":"Geisslitz, Sabrina", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Institute of Applied Biosciences Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Karlsruhe Germany"}, {"name":"Guzman, Carlos", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"ETSIAM Edificio Gregor Mendel Universidad de Córdoba Córdoba Spain"}, {"name":"Ikeda, Tatsuya M.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Western Region Agricultural Research Centre National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NAR0) Hiroshima Japan"}, {"name":"Arzani, Ahmad", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"<idGroup xmlns="http://www.wiley.com/namespaces/wiley"> <id type="ringgold" value="48456"></id> </idGroup> College of Agriculture Isfahan University of Technology Isfahan Iran"}, {"name":"Latella, Giovanni", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition Division University of L’Aquila L’Aquila Italy"}, {"name":"Simsek, Senay", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"<idGroup xmlns="http://www.wiley.com/namespaces/wiley"> <id type="ringgold" value="311308"></id> </idGroup> Purdue University West Lafayette Indiana USA"}, {"name":"Colomba, Mariastella", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"University of Urbino “Carlo Bo” Urbino Italy"}, {"name":"Gregorini, Armando", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"University of Urbino “Carlo Bo” Urbino Italy"}, {"name":"Zevallos, Victor", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"University of Northumbria Newcastle Upon Tyne UK"}, {"name":"Lullien‐Pellerin, Valerie", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"IATE, INRAE Institut Agro Univ. Montpellier Montpellier France"}, {"name":"Jonkers, Daisy", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"NUTRIM School for Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism Maastricht University Maastricht The Netherlands"}, {"name":"Shewry, Peter R.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Rothamsted Research Harpenden Hertfordshire UK"}]
Stripe rust and leaf rust are among the most devastating diseases of wheat, limiting its production globally. Wheat wild relatives harbour genetic diversity for new genes and alleles for all major wheat diseases. However, the use of this genetic variation from wild progenitor and non-progenitor species has been limited in the breeding programs. Reasons include limited recombination of donor and recipient genomes and the lack of tertiary gene pool markers. Here, we describe the development of a SNP based marker from the flow-sorted and sequenced Aegilops umbellulata chromosome 5U which can be used for marker assisted selection of four pair of alien leaf rust and stripe rust resistance genes. Lr57-Yr40_CAPS16 marker was reported earlier to be linked with alien leaf and stripe rust resistance genes introgressed on wheat chromosome 5DS. Due to its dominant nature and laborious to work with, a new SNP-based KASP marker, XTa5DS-2754099_kasp23, was developed from the same CAPS marker contig. XTa5DS-2754099_kasp23 was tested in Aegilops umbellulata, Ae. geniculata, Ae. peregrina and Ae. caudata derived alien introgression lines, which harbour four pairs of linked leaf and stripe rust genes; Lr76-Yr70, Lr57-Yr40, LrP- YrP, LrAc-YrAc, respectively. This KASP marker was found to be effective for the selection of the aforesaid four pairs of leaf rust and stripe rust resistance genes. Further, we tested and validated XTa5DS-2754099_kasp23 on commercial varieties and advanced breeding lines from four countries (India, Egypt, Australia and UK) including hexaploid and durum wheat. Our results provide evidence that KASP marker, XTa5DS-2754099_kasp23 can be used in marker-assisted selection of the four pairs of rust resistance alien genes in wheat breeding programmes.
A robust KASP marker for selection of four pairs of linked leaf rust and stripe rust resistance genes introgressed on chromosome arm 5DS from different wheat genomes
[{"name":"Alshammari, Norah A.", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Taylor, Moira A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Stevenson, Rebecca", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Gouseti, Ourania", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Alyami, Jaber", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Muttakin, Syahrizal", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Bakalis, Serafim", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Lovegrove, Alison", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Aithal, Guruprasad P.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Marciani, Luca", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Wholemeal flours from blends of bread wheat, emmer and spelt were processed into bread using yeast-based and sourdough fermentation. The bread wheat flour contained significantly higher concentrations of total dietary fibre and fructans than the spelt and emmer flours, the latter having the lowest contents. Breadmaking using sourdough and yeast systems resulted in changes in composition from flour to dough to bread including increases in organic acids and mannitol in the sourdough system and increases in amino acids and sugars (released by hydrolysis of proteins and starch, respectively) in both processing systems. The concentrations of fructans and raffinose (the major endogenous FODMAPs) were reduced by yeast and sourdough fermentation, with yeast having the greater effect. Both systems resulted in greater increases in sugars and glycerol in emmer than in bread wheat and spelt, but the significance of these differences for human health has not been established.
Comparative compositions of metabolites and dietary fibre components in doughs and breads produced from bread wheat, emmer and spelt and using yeast and sourdough processes
Sucrose utilisation for the synthesis of cellular components involved in growth and development and the accumulation of biomass determines diversity in the plant kingdom; sucrose utilisation and partitioning also underpin crop yields. As a complex process the use of sucrose for the partitioning of plant products for yield is decided by the interaction of several regulatory hubs and the integration of metabolism and development. Understanding the regulation of assimilate partitioning has been a grand challenge in plant and crop science. There are emerging examples of genes and processes that appear important for assimilate partitioning that underpin yield in crops and which are amenable to intervention. Enzymes of carbon metabolism were some of the first targets in attempts to modify assimilate partitioning at the beginning (source) and end (sink) of the whole plant assimilate partitioning process. Metabolic enzymes are subject to regulatory and homeostatic mechanisms, a key factor to consider in modifying assimilate partitioning. Trehalose 6-phosphate, as a sucrose signal, may represent a special case in its ability to regulate and coordinate source and sink processes. This review summarises recent progress in understanding the underlying regulators of assimilate partitioning and the current and potentially most promising routes to crop yield enhancement with a main focus on cereals. A framework for how source-sink may regulate whole plant assimilate partitioning involving a few key elements and the central importance of reproductive development is presented.
What are the regulatory targets for intervention in assimilate partitioning to improve crop yield and resilience?
[{"name":"Grover, Gomti", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Sharma, Achla", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Mackay, Ian", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Srivastava, Puja", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kaur, Satinder", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kaur, Jaspal", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Burridge, Amanda", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Allen, Sacha Przewieslik", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Bentley, Alison R.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Chhuneja, Parveen", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Bains, N. S.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
National Institute of Agricultural Botany
[{"name":"Grewal, Surbhi", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Coombes, Benedict", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Joynson, Ryan", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hall, Anthony", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Fellers, John", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Yang, Cai-yun", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Scholefield, Duncan", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Ashling, Stephen", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Isaac, Peter", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"King, Ian P.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"King, Julie", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"name":"Wang, Yan", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Shewry, Peter R.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hawkesford, Malcolm J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Qi, Pengfei", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Wan, Yongfang", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"name":"Geisslitz, Sabrina", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Shewry, Peter", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Brouns, Fred", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"America, Antoine H. P.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Caio, Giacomo Pietro Ismaele", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Daly, Matthew", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"D'Amico, Stefano", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"De Giorgio, Roberto", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Gilissen, Luud", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Grausgruber, Heinrich", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Huang, Xin", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Jonkers, Daisy", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Keszthelyi, Daniel", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Larré, Colette", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Masci, Stefania", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Mills, Clare", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Møller, Marie Sofie", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Sorrells, Mark E.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Svensson, Birte", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Zevallos, Victor F.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Weegels, Peter Louis", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Wheat is one of the most important food and protein sources in the world and although, in recent years wheat breeders have achieved yield gains, they are not sufficient to meet the demands of an ever-growing population. Development of high yielding wheat varieties, resilient to abiotic and biotic stress resulting from climate change, has been limited by wheat’s narrow genetic base. In contrast to wheat, the wild relatives of wheat provide a vast reservoir of genetic variation for most, if not all, agronomic traits. Previous studies by the authors have shown the transfer of genetic variation from T. urartu into bread wheat. However, before the introgression lines can be exploited for trait analysis, they are required to have stable transmission of the introgressions to the next generation. In this work, we describe the generation of 86 doubled haploid (DH) wheat- T. urartu introgression lines that carry homozygous introgressions which are stably inherited. The DH lines were characterised using the Axiom® Wheat Relative Genotyping Array and 151 KASP markers to identify 65 unique T. urartu introgressions in a bread wheat background. DH production has helped accelerate the breeding process and facilitated the early release of homozygous wheat- T. urartu introgression lines. Together with the KASP markers, this valuable resource could greatly advance identification of beneficial alleles that can be used in wheat improvement.
Generation of Doubled Haploid Wheat-Triticum urartu Introgression Lines and Their Characterisation Using Chromosome-Specific KASP Markers
Abstract Since 2005, the Pathogen–Host Interactions Database (PHI-base) has manually curated experimentally verified pathogenicity, virulence and effector genes from fungal, bacterial and protist pathogens, which infect animal, plant, fish, insect and/or fungal hosts. PHI-base (www.phi-base.org) is devoted to the identification and presentation of phenotype information on pathogenicity and effector genes and their host interactions. Specific gene alterations that did not alter the in host interaction phenotype are also presented. PHI-base is invaluable for comparative analyses and for the discovery of candidate targets in medically and agronomically important species for intervention. Version 4.12 (September 2021) contains 4387 references, and provides information on 8411 genes from 279 pathogens, tested on 228 hosts in 18, 190 interactions. This provides a 24% increase in gene content since Version 4.8 (September 2019). Bacterial and fungal pathogens represent the majority of the interaction data, with a 54:46 split of entries, whilst protists, protozoa, nematodes and insects represent 3.6% of entries. Host species consist of approximately 54% plants and 46% others of medical, veterinary and/or environmental importance. PHI-base data is disseminated to UniProtKB, FungiDB and Ensembl Genomes. PHI-base will migrate to a new gene-centric version (version 5.0) in early 2022. This major development is briefly described.
PHI-base in 2022: a multi-species phenotype database for Pathogen–Host Interactions
[{"name":"Hahn, Florian", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Loures, Laura Sanjurjo", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Sparks, Caroline A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kanyuka, Kostya", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Nekrasov, Vladimir", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"name":"Van De Velde, Karel", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Thomas, Stephen G.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Heyse, Floor", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kaspar, Rim", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Van Der Straeten, Dominique", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Rohde, Antje", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Ajaz, Sobia"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Benbow, Harriet R."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Christodoulou, Thalia"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Uauy, Cristobal"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Doohan, Fiona M."}]
[{"name":"Alabdullah, Abdul Kader", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Moore, Graham", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Martín, Azahara C.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"name":"Stephens, Christopher", "type":"first", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, UK"}, {"name":"Hammond-Kosack, Kim E", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, UK"}, {"name":"Kanyuka, Kostya", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, UK"}]
Periods of extreme wet-weather elevate agricultural diffuse water pollutant loads and climate projections for the UK suggest wetter winters. Within this context, we monitored nitrate and suspended sediment loss using a field and landscape scale platform in SW England during the recent extreme wet-weather of 2019–2020. We compared the recent extreme wet-weather period to both the climatic baseline (1981–2010) and projected near- (2041–2060) and far- (2071–2090) future climates, using the 95th percentiles of conventional rainfall indices generated for climate scenarios downscaled by the LARS-WG weather generator from the 19 global climate models in the CMIP5 ensemble for the RCP8.5 emission scenario. Finally, we explored relationships between pollutant loss and the rainfall indices. Grassland field-scale monthly average nitrate losses increased from 0.39-1.07 kg ha−1 (2016–2019) to 0.70–1.35 kg ha−1 (2019–2020), whereas losses from grassland ploughed up for cereals, increased from 0.63-0.83 kg ha−1 to 2.34–4.09 kg ha−1. Nitrate losses at landscape scale increased during the 2019–2020 extreme wet-weather period to 2.04–4.54 kg ha−1. Field-scale grassland monthly average sediment losses increased from 92-116 kg ha−1 (2016–2019) to 281–333 kg ha−1 (2019–2020), whereas corresponding losses from grassland converted to cereal production increased from 63-80 kg ha−1 to 2124–2146 kg ha−1. Landscape scale monthly sediment losses increased from 8-37 kg ha−1 in 2018 to between 15 and 173 kg ha−1 during the 2019–2020 wet-weather period. 2019–2020 was most representative of the forecast 95th percentiles of >1 mm rainfall for near- and far-future climates and this rainfall index was related to monitored sediment, but not nitrate, loss. The elevated suspended sediment loads generated by the extreme wet-weather of 2019–2020 therefore potentially provide some insight into the responses to the projected >1 mm rainfall extremes under future climates at the study location.
Diffuse water pollution during recent extreme wet-weather in the UK: Environmental damage costs and insight into the future?
[{"name":"Tao, Yang", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"An, Lu", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Xiao, Feng", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Li, Ganghua", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Ding, Yanfeng", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Paul, Matthew J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Liu, Zhenghui", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Phosphorus (P) is an essential element for crop growth and development. In acid soils, inorganic P (Pi) is immobilised with Fe3+ and Al3+, whereas in calcareous soils, it is fixed with Ca2+. Therefore, P nutrition is not constrained by soil P content per se but by its bioavailability to plants. The large amounts of P fertiliser applied to agricultural land to increase crop P availability can cause eutrophication of non-flowing water bodies. Being a non-renewable resource, P reserves are becoming depleted. Soil P mobilisation is governed by multiple adaptations at the physiological and molecular levels. Below-ground physiological processes including favourable root architecture and morphology, and release of carboxylates, protons and root secretory phosphohydrolases result in significant modification of the rhizosphere microenvironment thereby enhancing P acquisition. Beneficial soil microorganisms work in tandem with plants to mobilise bioavailable soil P. Phosphorus acquisition through rhizosphere modifications is an exciting area of research for plant nutritionists.
Below-ground physiological processes enhancing phosphorus acquisition in plants
[{"type": "first", "name": "Lafiandra, Domenico"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Shewry, Peter R."}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Bhattacharya, Joorie"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Nitnavare, Rahul"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Shankhapal, Aishwarya"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Ghosh, Sougata"}]
[{"name":"Putelat, Thibaut", "type":"first", "affiliation":"Department of Sustainable Agriculture Sciences, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden AL5 2JQ, UK"}, {"name":"Whitmore, Andrew P.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Sustainable Agriculture Sciences, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden AL5 2JQ, UK"}, {"name":"Senapati, Nimai", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Plant Sciences, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden AL5 2JQ, UK"}, {"name":"Semenov, Mikhail A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Plant Sciences, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden AL5 2JQ, UK"}]
Abstract Wheat is an economically, socially, and nutritionally important crop, however, aphid infestation can often reduce wheat yield through feeding and virus transmission. Through field phenotyping, we investigated aphid resistance in ancestral wheat Triticum monococcum (L.). Aphid ( Rhopalosiphum padi (L.) , Sitobion avenae (F.) and Metopolophium dirhodum (Wlk.)) populations and natural enemy presence (parasitised mummified aphids, ladybird adults and larvae and lacewing eggs and larvae) on two naturally susceptible wheat varieties, Triticum aestivum (L.) var. Solstice and T. monococcum MDR037, and three potentially resistant genotypes T. monococcum MDR657, MDR045 and MDR049 were monitored across three years of field trials. Triticum monococcum MDR045 and MDR049 had smaller aphid populations, whereas MDR657 showed no resistance. Overall, natural enemy presence was positively correlated with aphid populations; however, MDR049 had similar natural enemy presence to MDR037 which is susceptible to aphid infestation. It is hypothesised that alongside reducing aphid population growth, MDR049 also confers indirect resistance by attracting natural enemies. The observed resistance to aphids in MDR045 and MDR049 has strong potential for introgression into commercial wheat varieties, which could have an important role in Integrated Pest Management strategies to reduce aphid populations and virus transmission.
Identifying aphid resistance in the ancestral wheat Triticum monococcum under field conditions
Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety
Raw sequence reads for use of spontaneous virulence mutants of wheat stem rust pathogen in identifying AvrSr27
In Arabidopsis thaliana, the evolutionary conserved N-terminal acetyltransferase (Nat) complexes NatA and NatB co-translationally acetylate 60% of the proteome. Both have recently been implicated in the regulation of plant stress responses. While NatA mediates drought tolerance, NatB is required for pathogen resistance and the adaptation to high salinity and high osmolarity. Salt and osmotic stress impair protein folding and result in the accumulation of misfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The ER-membrane resident E3 ubiquitin ligase DOA10 targets misfolded proteins for degradation during ER stress and is conserved among eukaryotes. In yeast, DOA10 recognizes conditional degradation signals (Ac/N-degrons) created by NatA and NatB. Assuming that this mechanism is preserved in plants, the lack of Ac/N-degrons required for efficient removal of misfolded proteins might explain the sensitivity of NatB mutants to protein harming conditions. In this study, we investigate the response of NatB mutants to dithiothreitol (DTT) and tunicamycin (TM)-induced ER stress. We report that NatB mutants are hypersensitive to DTT but not TM, suggesting that the DTT hypersensitivity is caused by an over-reduction of the cytosol rather than an accumulation of unfolded proteins in the ER. In line with this hypothesis, the cytosol of NatB depleted plants is constitutively over-reduced and a global transcriptome analysis reveals that their reductive stress response is permanently activated. Moreover, we demonstrate that doa10 mutants are susceptible to neither DTT nor TM, ruling out a substantial role of DOA10 in ER-associated protein degradation (ERAD) in plants. Contrary to previous findings in yeast, our data indicate that N-terminal acetylation (NTA) does not inhibit ER targeting of a substantial amount of proteins in plants. In summary, we provide further evidence that NatB-mediated imprinting of the proteome is vital for the response to protein harming stress and rule out DOA10 as the sole recognin for substrates in the plant ERAD pathway, leaving the role of DOA10 in plants ambiguous.
Disruption of the Nα-Acetyltransferase NatB Causes Sensitivity to Reductive Stress in Arabidopsis thaliana
[{"name":"Tock, Andrew J.", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Holland, Daniel M.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Jiang, Wei", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Osman, Kim", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Sanchez-Moran, Eugenio", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Higgins, James D.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Edwards, Keith J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Uauy, Cristobal", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Franklin, F. Chris H.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Henderson, Ian R.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"name":"Fahy, Brendan", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Gonzalez, Oscar", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Savva, George M.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Ahn-Jarvis, Jennifer H.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Warren, Frederick J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Dunn, Jack", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Lovegrove, Alison", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hazard, Brittany A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Yang, Wanneng"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Doonan, John H."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Hawkesford, Malcolm J."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Pridmore, Tony"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Zhou, Ji"}]
The unprecedented wheat yield increases during the Green Revolution were achieved through the introduction of the Reduced height (Rht)-B1b and Rht-D1b semi-dwarfing alleles. These Rht-1 alleles encode growth-repressing DELLA genes containing a stop codon within their open reading frame that confers gibberellin (GA)-insensitive semi-dwarfism. In this study, we successfully took the hurdle of detecting wild-type RHT-1 proteins in different wheat organs and confirmed their degradation in response to GAs. We further demonstrated that Rht-B1b and Rht-D1b produce N-terminal truncated proteins through translational reinitiation. Expression of these N-terminal truncated proteins in transgenic lines and in Rht-D1c, an allele containing multiple Rht-D1b copies, demonstrated their ability to cause strong dwarfism, resulting from their insensitivity to GA-mediated degradation. N-terminal truncated proteins were detected in spikes and nodes, but not in the aleurone layers. Since Rht-B1b and Rht-D1b alleles cause dwarfism but have wild-type dormancy, this finding suggests that tissue-specific differences in translational reinitiation may explain why the Rht-1 alleles reduce plant height without affecting dormancy. Taken together, our findings not only reveal the molecular mechanism underlying the Green Revolution but also demonstrate that translational reinitiation in the main open reading frame occurs in plants.
N-terminal truncated RHT-1 proteins generated by translational reinitiation cause semi-dwarfing of wheat Green Revolution alleles
High-molecular-weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GSs) are the most critical grain storage proteins that determine the unique processing quality of wheat. Although it is part of the superior HMW-GS pair (Dx5+Dy10), the contribution of the Dy10 subunit to wheat processing quality remains unclear. In this study, we elucidated the effect of Dy10 on wheat processing quality by generating and analyzing a deletion mutant (with the Dy10-null allele) and by elucidating the changes to wheat flour following the incorporation of purified Dy10. The Dy10-null allele was transcribed normally, but there was a lack of the Dy10 subunit. These findings implied that the Dy10-null allele decreased the glutenin:gliadin ratio and negatively affected dough strength (i.e., Zeleny sedimentation value, gluten index, and dough development and stability times) and the bread-making quality; however, it positively affected the biscuit-making quality. The incorporation of various amounts of purified Dy10 into wheat flour had a detrimental effect on biscuit-making quality. The results of this study demonstrate that the Dy10 subunit is essential for maintaining wheat dough strength. Furthermore, the Dy10-null allele may be exploited by soft wheat breeding programs.
Effect of high molecular weight glutenin subunit Dy10 on wheat dough properties and end-use quality
Abstract Starch synthase III plays a key role in starch biosynthesis and is highly expressed in developing wheat grains. To understand the contribution of SSIII to starch and grain properties, we developed wheat ssIIIa mutants in the elite cultivar Cadenza using in silico TILLING in a mutagenized population. SSIIIa protein was undetectable by immunoblot analysis in triple ssIIIa mutants carrying mutations in each homoeologous copy of ssIIIa (A, B and D). Loss of SSIIIa in triple mutants led to significant changes in starch phenotype including smaller A-type granules and altered granule morphology. Starch chain-length distributions of double and triple mutants indicated greater levels of amylose than sibling controls (33.8% of starch in triple mutants, and 29.3% in double mutants vs. 25.5% in sibling controls) and fewer long amylopectin chains. Wholemeal flour of triple mutants had more resistant starch (6.0% vs. 2.9% in sibling controls) and greater levels of non-starch polysaccharides; the grains appeared shrunken and weighed ~ 11% less than the sibling control which was partially explained by loss in starch content. Interestingly, our study revealed gene dosage effects which could be useful for fine-tuning starch properties in wheat breeding applications while minimizing impact on grain weight and quality.
Loss of starch synthase IIIa changes starch molecular structure and granule morphology in grains of hexaploid bread wheat
[{"type": "first", "name": "Zhang, Y."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Granger, S.J."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Semenov, M.A."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Upadhayay, H.R."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Collins, A.L."}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Ali, Shahid"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Zhang, Tianxu"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Lambing, Christophe"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Wang, Wanpeng"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Zhang, Peng"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Xie, Linan"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Wang, Jiang"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Khan, Naeem"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Zhang, Qingzhu"}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Brouns, Fred"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Geisslitz, Sabrina"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Shewry, Peter R."}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Stella, Tommaso"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Webber, Heidi"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Olesen, Jørgen E"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Ruane, Alex C"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Fronzek, Stefan"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Bregaglio, Simone"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Mamidanna, Sravya"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Bindi, Marco"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Collins, Brian"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Faye, Babacar"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Ferrise, Roberto"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Fodor, Nándor"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Gabaldón-Leal, Clara"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Jabloun, Mohamed"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Kersebaum, Kurt-Christian"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Lizaso, Jon I"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Lorite, Ignacio J"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Manceau, Loic"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Martre, Pierre"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Nendel, Claas"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Rodríguez, Alfredo"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Ruiz-Ramos, Margarita"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Semenov, Mikhail A"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Stratonovitch, Pierre"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Ewert, Frank"}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Kirschner, Gwendolyn K."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Rosignoli, Serena"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Guo, Li"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Vardanega, Isaia"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Imani, Jafargholi"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Altmüller, Janine"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Milner, Sara G."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Balzano, Raffaella"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Nagel, Kerstin A."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Pflugfelder, Daniel"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Forestan, Cristian"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Bovina, Riccardo"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Koller, Robert"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Stöcker, Tyll G."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Mascher, Martin"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Simmonds, James"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Uauy, Cristobal"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Schoof, Heiko"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Tuberosa, Roberto"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Salvi, Silvio"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Hochholdinger, Frank"}]
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the major staple crops in the world and is used to prepare a range of foods. The development of new varieties with wider variation in grain composition could broaden their use. We characterized grains and flours from oil-accumulating transgenic wheat expressing the oat (Avena sativa L.) endosperm WRINKLED1 (AsWRI1) grown under field conditions. Lipid and starch accumulation was determined in developing caryopses of AsWRI1-wheat and X-ray microtomography was used to study grain morphology. The developing caryopses of AsWRI1-wheat grains had increased triacylglycerol content and decreased starch content compared to the control. Mature AsWRI1-wheat grains also had reduced weight, were wrinkled and had a shrunken endosperm and X-ray tomography revealed that the proportion of endosperm was decreased while that of the aleurone was increased. Grains were milled to produce two white flours and one bran fraction. Mineral and lipid analyses showed that the flour fractions from the AsWRI1-wheat were contaminated with bran, due to the effects of the changed morphology on milling. This study gives a detailed analysis of grains from field grown transgenic wheat that expresses a gene that plays a central regulatory role in carbon allocation and significantly affects grain composition.
Characterisation of Grains and Flour Fractions from Field Grown Transgenic Oil-Accumulating Wheat Expressing Oat WRI1
[{"name":"Grewal, Surbhi", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Guwela, Veronica", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Newell, Claire", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Yang, Cai-yun", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Ashling, Stephen", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Scholefield, Duncan", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hubbart-Edwards, Stella", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Burridge, Amanda", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Stride, Alex", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"King, Ian P.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"King, Julie", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"name":"Basavaraddi, Priyanka A.", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Savin, Roxana", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Bencivenga, Stefano", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Griffiths, Simon", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Slafer, Gustavo A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"name":"Upadhyaya, Narayana M.", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Mago, Rohit", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Panwar, Vinay", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hewitt, Tim", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Luo, Ming", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Chen, Jian", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Sperschneider, Jana", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Nguyen-Phuc, Hoa", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Wang, Aihua", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Ortiz, Diana", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hac, Luch", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Bhatt, Dhara", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Li, Feng", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Zhang, Jianping", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Ayliffe, Michael", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Figueroa, Melania", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kanyuka, Kostya", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Ellis, Jeffrey G.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Dodds, Peter N.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Climate change effects on UK winter wheat grain yield are complex: warmer temperature, negative; greater carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) concentration, positive; but other environmental variables and their timing also affect yield. In the absence of long-term experiments where temperature and CO 2 concentration were manipulated separately, we applied the crop simulation model Sirius with long-term daily meteorological data (1892–2016) for Rothamsted, Hertfordshire, UK (2007–2016 mean growing season temperature 1.03°C warmer than 1892–1991), and CO 2 concentration over this period, to investigate the separate effects of historic CO 2 and weather on simulated grain yield in three wheat cultivars of the modern era. We show a slight decline in simulated yield over the period 1892–2016 from the effect of weather (daily temperature, rainfall and sunshine hours) at fixed CO 2 (294.50 ppm, 1892 reference value), but a maximum 9.4% increase when accounting for increasing atmospheric CO 2 (from 294.50 to 404.21 ppm), differing slightly among cultivars. Notwithstanding considerable inter-annual variation, the slight yield decline at 294.50 ppm CO 2 over this 125-year period from the historic weather simulations for Rothamsted agrees with the expected decline from temperature increase alone, but the positive yield trend with actual CO 2 values does not match the recent stagnation in UK wheat yield.
The impact of weather and increased atmospheric CO 2 from 1892 to 2016 on simulated yields of UK wheat
The importance of wheat glutenin polymers in determining the processing quality of wheat is generally accepted. Similarly, genetic and molecular studies have provided detailed information on the sequences of the glutenin subunits and identified associations between individual subunits and either good or poor quality for breadmaking. However, our knowledge of the polymers themselves, including their molecular masses, structures and pathways of synthesis and assembly, remains incomplete and is largely based on studies carried out between 20 and 50 years ago. The current paper therefore reviews this knowledge and identifies priorities for future research which is required to facilitate the use of modern molecular tools to develop improved types of wheat for future requirements.
Wheat glutenin polymers 1. structure, assembly and properties
[{"name":"Raffan, Sarah", "type":"first", "affiliation":"Plant Sciences Department Rothamsted Research Harpenden UK"}, {"name":"Halford, Nigel G.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Plant Sciences Department Rothamsted Research Harpenden UK"}]
Many biotrophic pathogens, which require living plant tissues for colonization, interact with their hosts in a gene-for-gene (GFG) manner whereby plant disease resistance (R) genes recognize products of specific avirulence (Avr) genes in pathogens leading to disease resistance (Flor, 1956). In these interactions, the absence of either the R gene, or the corresponding Avr gene results in disease. GFG interactions have also been well documented in the pathosystem involving the necrotrophic fungal pathogen Parastagonospora nodorum (also known as Septoria, Stagonospora, Leptosphaeria and Phaeosphaeria nodorum) and wheat. However, in this case, the interactions lead to increased disease when Parastagonospora nodorum expresses specific necrotrophic effector (NE) genes and wheat contains the corresponding dominant sensitivity genes. This type of interaction is often described as an ‘inverse’ GFG (Fig. 1).
Future grain yield (GY) improvements require the identification of beneficial traits within the context of high yield potential and not just based on the pleiotropic effect of traits such as crop height and heading date. We evaluated 1937 lines from Nested Association Mapping (NAM) population derived from 13 bi-parental varietal crosses under field conditions. We selected 493 lines with similar time to anthesis to that of the two checks used in the study (across and within each family) which reduced the range of plant height in the selected lines. Yield components were measured in these 493 lines from which 231 lines were selected by excluding lines with lowest number of grains so excluded low yielding lines. Later the subset of 231 lines were evaluated in two field experiments (2016-17, CS1 and 2017-18, CS2). Numerical and physiological components of grain yield were measured. The two-step selection maximised GY within an acceptable range of variation for height and anthesis. GY in 231 lines showed very high G×E interaction. Taking both seasons together, we selected lines from upper and lower quartile GY groups to identify stable beneficial trait combinations for improved GY. Differences in GY were explained by grain number driven by increased spike dry weight at anthesis (SDWa) and fruiting efficiency (FE). Increased GY was accompanied by sink limitation. The data points towards increases in grain number as the route towards future GY increases in wheat breeding.
Genotypic differences in wheat yield determinants within a NAM population based on elite parents
[{"name":"Ptošková, Klára", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Szecówka, Marek", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Jaworek, Pavel", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Tarkowská, Danuše", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Petřík, Ivan", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Pavlović, Iva", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Novák, Ondřej", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Thomas, Stephen G.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Phillips, Andrew L.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hedden, Peter", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Shewry, Peter R."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Lovegrove, Alison"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Wingen, Luzie U."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Griffiths, Simon"}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Pandey, Renu"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Vengavasi, Krishnapriya"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Hawkesford, Malcolm J."}]
Sorghum is an important source of dietary iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) in parts of Africa and India, but there is a need to increase their concentrations to meet dietary requirements. Grains of a genetically biofortified sorghum line (Parbhani Shakti) had higher concentrations of Fe and Zn than a control line (M35-1). Analysis at the tissue level by histochemical staining and at the cellular level using NanoSIMS showed that both minerals are concentrated in the aleurone layer and in the scutellum of the embryo, with Zn also being concentrated in the embryonic axis. However, NanoSIMS showed that “hot spots” of 56Fe+ and 64Zn+ were also present in the sub-aleurone and starchy endosperm cells. Most of these hot spots also contained 31P16O+ indicating that the Fe and Zn are present as phytates, as in the aleurone and scutellum cells. Low concentrations of 56Fe+ and 64Zn+ were also observed in the protein matrix of these cells.
The location of iron and zinc in grain of conventional and biofortified lines of sorghum
[{"name":"Addy, John W. G.", "type":"first", "affiliation":"Computational and Analytical Sciences, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Hertfordshire AL5 2JQ, UK"}, {"name":"Ellis, Richard H.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, Berkshire, UK"}, {"name":"Macdonald, Andy J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Sustainable Agriculture Sciences, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Hertfordshire AL5 2JQ, UK"}, {"name":"Semenov, Mikhail A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Plant Science, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Hertfordshire AL5 2JQ, UK"}, {"name":"Mead, Andrew", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Computational and Analytical Sciences, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Hertfordshire AL5 2JQ, UK"}]
[{"name":"Dreisigacker, Susanne", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Burgueño, Juan", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Pacheco, Angela", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Molero, Gemma", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Sukumaran, Sivakumar", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Rivera-Amado, Carolina", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Reynolds, Matthew", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Griffiths, Simon", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"name":"Evans, Catherine EB", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Arunkumar, Ramesh", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Borrill, Philippa", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Bansal, Mitaly"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Adamski, Nikolai M."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Toor, Puneet Inder"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Kaur, Satinder"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Sharma, Achla"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Srivastava, Puja"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Bansal, Urmil"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Uauy, Cristobal"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Chhuneja, Parveen"}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Halford, Nigel G"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Raffan, Sarah"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Oddy, Joseph"}]
[{"name":"Vu, Lam Dai", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Xu, Xiangyu", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Zhu, Tingting", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Pan, Lixia", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"van Zanten, Martijn", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"de Jong, Dorrit", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Wang, Yaowei", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Vanremoortele, Tim", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Locke, Anna M.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"van de Cotte, Brigitte", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"De Winne, Nancy", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Stes, Elisabeth", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Russinova, Eugenia", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"De Jaeger, Geert", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Van Damme, Daniël", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Uauy, Cristobal", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Gevaert, Kris", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"De Smet, Ive", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Photosynthesis is an indispensable process that provides the oxygen we breathe, regulates climate, and drives biological processes including crop yields. An important and obvious challenge for crop improvement is: Is photosynthesis and its regulation in crops amenable to improvement to stimulate yields? If so, how could this be done? Photosynthesis is a well-studied process with models of the limitations in the photosynthetic pathway (Zhu et al., 2010). The past 10 years have seen a major effort into improving photosynthesis with a justification that improvements in crop yields need to be quick and large because of the yield plateauing of major crops. The harvest index has been optimized, and therefore, the next bottleneck is proposed as photosynthesis. However, crop yields are yet to benefit from this research despite some tantalizing examples of genetic interventions in models (Arabidopsis and tobacco) including field studies (Glowacka et al., 2018; South et al., 2019). The focus on photosynthesis has been controversial given long-standing evidence with well-reasoned arguments going back to the 1970s that carbon input is not limiting for crop growth and yield (Sinclair et al., 2019). Failure to produce tangible benefits in crops so far from the photosynthetic research effort is attracting gathering criticism (Araus et al., 2021) with arguments for a more balanced approach (Reynolds et al., 2021). However, a recent study overexpresses Rubisco in paddy rice which increases yield in the field under good nitrogen supply by 17–28% (Yoon et al., 2020). This appears to be the first successful direct targeting of photosynthesis in the field in a major food security cereal crop. This article gathers information from recent literature on the photosynthetic improvement of both heavily reductionist approaches and broader-based strategies to provide a balanced opinion of the way forward for the photosynthesis field for crop yield improvement.
Improving Photosynthetic Metabolism for Crop Yields: What Is Going to Work?
The high- and low-molecular-weight glutenin subunits are major contributors to dough strength and elasticity, through their influence on glutenin polymer structure. The study of their genetics, diversity, and role in quality characteristics has been facilitated by the development of genetic materials and analytical tools. Induced and natural mutants have been used to confirm the importance of the number and location of cysteine residues in modulating the size distribution of the glutenin polymers with the presence of an additional cysteine in the central repetitive domain of the HMW-GS having a negative role on polymer formation. The application of genomics and proteomics the integration of datasets from these technologies have facilitated the identification, cloning and functional analysis of genes encoding novel HMW-GS and LMW-GS and have also allowed the identification of post-translational modifications (PTMs) and elucidated their roles in determining dough quality.
Wheat Glutenin polymers 2. The role of wheat glutenin subunits in polymer formation and dough quality
[{"type": "first", "name": "Gaddameedi, Anil"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Sheraz, Sadia"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Kumar, Ashok"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Li, Kexue"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Pellny, Till"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Gupta, Rajeev"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Wan, Yongfang"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Moore, Katie L."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Shewry, Peter R."}]
[{"name":"Xu, Jiemeng", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Lowe, Claudia", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hernandez-Leon, Sergio G.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Dreisigacker, Susanne", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Reynolds, Matthew P.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Valenzuela-Soto, Elisa M.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Paul, Matthew J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Heuer, Sigrid", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Conventional breeding has been immensely successful in increasing crop production to meet the demands of the growing global population, particularly for wheat where production has increased by over three-fold over the last 60 years without a significant increase in the area of land used. However, the pace of improvement by conventional breeding is slow and limited by the range of variation present in wheat and species with which it can be crossed. Genomics can be defined as “an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes” (Wikipedia). As such it has the potential to revolutionise crop improvement, by accelerating the rate of progress and increasing the range of variation that is available. Despite this potential, progress in the application of biotechnology to improve wheat has been slow, particularly when applied to the quality of the grain for processing and nutrition. We will therefore consider the reasons for this and identify priorities for future research.
Exploiting genomics to improve the benefits of wheat: Prospects and limitations
Wheat is a well-known source of B vitamins but also contains significant amounts of vitamin E and related tocols, which have a number of positive health benefits. However, there are no reports on increasing the tocol content of wheat. A prerequisite for increasing the tocol content is the identification of variation in its amount within wheat and related cereals. We therefore determined the tocol content and composition in the grain of 230 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) of a diverse biparental wheat population (Mv Toborzó/Tommi), showing variation in the total content from 13.69 to 45.18 μg/g d.m. The total content also showed transgressive segregation in the population. The effect of the genotype on the variance components of tocols was studied, and the broad-sense heritability was calculated to be 0.71. The lines were also grouped based on their tocol content and analyzed for their chemical composition and breadmaking quality. The high heritability value and the wide variation found in the total amount indicate that increasing the content of tocols is a possible breeding strategy.
Variation in the Content and Composition of Tocols in a Wheat Population
[{"name":"Brouns, Fred", "type":"first", "affiliation":"Dept. of Human Biology, NUTRIM School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life SciencesMaastricht Univ. Universiteitssingel 40 6229 ER Maastricht The Netherlands"}, {"name":"Rooy, Gonny", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Div. of Gastroenterology‐Hepatology, Dept. of Internal Medicine, NUTRIM School of Nutrition and Translational Research in MetabolismMaastricht Univ. Medical Center Maastricht The Netherlands"}, {"name":"Shewry, Peter", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Rothamsted Research Harpenden Hertfordshire U.K."}, {"name":"Rustgi, Sachin", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Dept. of Plant and Environmental Sciences, School of Health ResearchClemson Univ. Florence SC 29505 U.S.A."}, {"name":"Jonkers, Daisy", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Div. of Gastroenterology‐Hepatology, Dept. of Internal Medicine, NUTRIM School of Nutrition and Translational Research in MetabolismMaastricht Univ. Medical Center Maastricht The Netherlands"}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Brouns, Fred"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Shewry, Peter R."}]
The presence of acrylamide in foods derived from grains, tubers, storage roots, beans and other crop products has become a difficult problem for the food industry. Here we review how acrylamide is formed predominantly from free asparagine and reducing sugars, the relationship between precursor concentration and acrylamide formation, and the challenge of complying with increasingly stringent regulations. Progress made in reducing acrylamide levels in foods is assessed, along with the difficulty of dealing with a raw material that may be highly variable due to plant responses to nutrition, disease, and cold storage. The potential for plant breeding and biotechnology to deliver low acrylamide varieties is assessed, in the context of a regulatory landscape covering acrylamide, crop biotechnology, and crop protection.
Progress towards the production of potatoes and cereals with low acrylamide-forming potential
Abstract In the coming decades, larger genetic gains in yield will be necessary to meet projected demand, and this must be achieved despite the destabilizing impacts of climate change on crop production. The root systems of crops capture the water and nutrients needed to support crop growth, and improved root systems tailored to the challenges of specific agricultural environments could improve climate resiliency. Each component of root initiation, growth and development is controlled genetically and responds to the environment, which translates to a complex quantitative system to navigate for the breeder, but also a world of opportunity given the right tools. In this review, we argue that it is important to know more about the ‘hidden half’ of crop plants and hypothesize that crop improvement could be further enhanced using approaches that directly target selection for root system architecture. To explore these issues, we focus predominantly on bread wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.), a staple crop that plays a major role in underpinning global food security. We review the tools available for root phenotyping under controlled and field conditions and the use of these platforms alongside modern genetics and genomics resources to dissect the genetic architecture controlling the wheat root system. To contextualize these advances for applied wheat breeding, we explore questions surrounding which root system architectures should be selected for, which agricultural environments and genetic trait configurations of breeding populations are these best suited to, and how might direct selection for these root ideotypes be implemented in practice.
Wheat root systems as a breeding target for climate resilience
Flower development is a major determinant of yield in crops. In wheat, natural variation for the size of spikelet and floral organs is particularly evident in Triticum polonicum , a tetraploid subspecies of wheat with long glumes, lemmas, and grains. Using map-based cloning, we identified VRT2 , a MADS-box transcription factor belonging to the SVP family, as the gene underlying the P1 locus. The causal P1 mutation is a sequence substitution in intron-1 that results in both increased and ectopic expression of the T. polonicum VRT-A2 allele. Based on allelic variation studies, we propose that the intron-1 mutation in VRT-A2 is the unique T. polonicum species defining polymorphism, which was later introduced into hexaploid wheat via natural hybridizations. Near-isogenic lines differing for the T. polonicum long-glume ( P1 ) locus revealed a gradient effect of P1 across florets. Transgenic lines of hexaploid wheat carrying the T. polonicum VRT-A2 allele show that expression levels of VRT-A2 are highly correlated with spike, glume, grain, and floral organ length. These results highlight how changes in expression profiles, through variation in cis -regulation, can impact on agronomic traits in a dosage-dependent manner in polyploid crops.
Increased and ectopic expression of Triticum polonicum VRT-A2 underlies elongated glumes and grains in hexaploid wheat in a dosage-dependent manner
[{"type": "first", "name": "Shewry, Peter"}]
Abstract Background Understanding the determinants of free asparagine concentration in wheat grain is necessary to reduce levels of the processing contaminant acrylamide in baked and toasted wheat products. Although crop management strategies can help reduce asparagine concentrations, breeders have limited options to select for genetic variation underlying this trait. Asparagine synthetase enzymes catalyse a critical step in asparagine biosynthesis in plants and, in wheat, are encoded by five homeologous gene triads that exhibit distinct expression profiles. Within this family, TaASN2 genes are highly expressed during grain development but TaASN-B2 is absent in some varieties. Results Natural genetic diversity in the asparagine synthetase gene family was assessed in different wheat varieties revealing instances of presence/absence variation and other polymorphisms, including some predicted to affect the function of the encoded protein. The presence and absence of TaASN-B2 was determined across a range of UK and global common wheat varieties and related species, showing that the deletion encompassing this gene was already present in some wild emmer wheat genotypes. Expression profiling confirmed that TaASN2 transcripts were only detectable in the grain, while TaASN3.1 genes were highly expressed during the early stages of grain development. TaASN-A2 was the most highly expressed TaASN2 homeologue in most assayed wheat varieties. TaASN-B2 and TaASN-D2 were expressed at similar, lower levels in varieties possessing TaASN-B2 . Expression of TaASN-A2 and TaASN-D2 did not increase to compensate for the absence of TaASN-B2, so total TaASN2 expression was lower in varieties lacking TaASN-B2 . Consequently, free asparagine concentrations in field-produced grain were, on average, lower in varieties lacking TaASN-B2 , although the effect was lost when free asparagine accumulated to very high concentrations as a result of sulphur deficiency. Conclusions Selecting wheat genotypes lacking the TaASN-B2 gene may be a simple and rapid way for breeders to reduce free asparagine concentrations in commercial wheat grain.
Reduced free asparagine in wheat grain resulting from a natural deletion of TaASN-B2: investigating and exploiting diversity in the asparagine synthetase gene family to improve wheat quality
Senescence is a highly quantitative trait, but in wheat the genetics underpinning senescence regulation remain relatively unknown. To select senescence variation and ultimately identify novel genetic regulators, accurate characterization of senescence phenotypes is essential. When investigating senescence, phenotyping efforts often focus on, or are limited to, the visual assessment of flag leaves. However, senescence is a whole-plant process, involving remobilization and translocation of resources into the developing grain. Furthermore, the temporal progression of senescence poses challenges regarding trait quantification and description, whereupon the different models and approaches applied result in varying definitions of apparently similar metrics. To gain a holistic understanding of senescence, we phenotyped flag leaf and peduncle senescence progression, alongside grain maturation. Reviewing the literature, we identified techniques commonly applied in quantification of senescence variation and developed simple methods to calculate descriptive and discriminatory metrics. To capture senescence dynamism, we developed the idea of calculating thermal time to different flag leaf senescence scores, for which between-year Spearman’s rank correlations of r ≥ 0.59, P &lt; 4.7 × 10–5 (TT70), identify as an accurate phenotyping method. Following our experience of senescence trait genetic mapping, we recognized the need for singular metrics capable of discriminating senescence variation, identifying thermal time to flag leaf senescence score of 70 (TT70) and mean peduncle senescence (MeanPed) scores as most informative. Moreover, grain maturity assessments confirmed a previous association between our staygreen traits and grain fill extension, illustrating trait functionality. Here we review different senescence phenotyping approaches and share our experiences of phenotyping two independent recombinant inbred line (RIL) populations segregating for staygreen traits. Together, we direct readers toward senescence phenotyping methods we found most effective, encouraging their use when investigating and discriminating senescence variation of differing genetic bases, and aid trait selection and weighting in breeding and research programs alike.
Capturing and Selecting Senescence Variation in Wheat
Asparagine synthetase catalyses the transfer of an amino group from glutamine to aspartate to form glutamate and asparagine. The accumulation of free (nonprotein) asparagine in crops has implications for food safety because free asparagine is the precursor for acrylamide, a carcinogenic contaminant that forms during high‐temperature cooking and processing. Here we review publicly available genome data for asparagine synthetase genes from species of the Pooideae subfamily, including bread wheat and related wheat species (Triticum and Aegilops spp.), barley (Hordeum vulgare) and rye (Secale cereale) of the Triticeae tribe. Also from the Pooideae subfamily: brachypodium (Brachypodium dIstachyon) of the Brachypodiae tribe. More diverse species are also included, comprising sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) and maize (Zea mays) of the Panicoideae subfamily and rice (Oryza sativa) of the Ehrhartoideae subfamily. The asparagine synthetase gene families of the Triticeae species each comprise five genes per genome, with the genes assigned to four groups: 1, 2, 3 (subdivided into 3.1 and 3.2) and 4. Each species has a single gene per genome in each group, except that some bread wheat varieties (genomes AABBDD) and emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides; genomes AABB) lack a group 2 gene in the B genome. This raises questions about the ancestry of cultivated pasta wheat and the B genome donor of bread wheat, suggesting that the hybridisation event that gave rise to hexaploid bread wheat occurred more than once. In phylogenetic analyses, genes from the other species cluster with the Triticeae genes, but brachypodium, sorghum and maize lack a group 2 gene, while rice has only two genes, one group 3 and one group 4. This means that TaASN2, the most highly expressed asparagine synthetase gene in wheat grain, has no equivalent in maize, rice, sorghum or brachypodium. An evolutionary pathway is proposed in which a series of gene duplications gave rise to the five genes found in modern Triticeae species.
[{"name":"Qian, Budong", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Jing, Qi", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Cannon, Alex J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Smith, Ward", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Grant, Brian", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Semenov, Mikhail A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Xu, Yue-Ping", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Ma, Di", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Although barley falls far behind the “big three” cereals (maize, rice and wheat) in total global production it is one of the most widely grown cereals in the world, being grown throughout the temperate zone. This success reflects the adaptability of the crop across environments and the end use properties of the grain: notably for malting, brewing and distilling but also for heath foods and livestock feed. The five papers brought together in this Virtual Special Issue illustrate some of the most exciting developments in barley research, focusing on the development of resources (genetic, genomic and biotechnological) to facilitate crop improvement and the application of these to improving aspects of grain composition and quality.
Addressing challenges for barley production and utilisation in the 21st Century
All stage resistance to stripe rust races prevalent in India was investigated in the European winter wheat cultivar ‘Acienda’. In order to dissect the genetic basis of the resistance, a backcross population was developed between ‘Acienda’ and the stripe rust susceptible Indian spring wheat cultivar ‘HD 2967’. Inheritance studies revealed segregation for a dominant resistant gene. High density SNP genotyping was used to map stripe rust resistance and marker regression analysis located stripe rust resistance to the distal end of wheat chromosome 1A. Interval mapping located this region between the SNP markers AX-95162217 and AX-94540853, at a LOD score of 15.83 with a phenotypic contribution of 60%. This major stripe rust resistance locus from ‘Acienda’ has been temporarily designated as Yraci . A candidate gene search in the 2.76 Mb region carrying Yraci on chromosome 1A identified 18 NBS-LRR genes based on wheat RefSeqv1.0 annotations. Our results indicate that as there is no major gene reported in the Yraci chromosome region, it is likely to be a novel stripe rust resistance locus and offers potential for deployment, using the identified markers, to confer all stage stripe rust resistance.
Identification of a novel stripe rust resistance gene from the European winter wheat cultivar ‘Acienda’: A step towards rust proofing wheat cultivation
[{"type": "first", "name": "Sims, Cassie"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Oddy, Joseph"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Hibbert, Lauren E"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Newell, Amy S"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Steel, Luca Ruth"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Gibbons, Alastair T"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Caporaso, Nicola"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Duménil, Claire"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Read, Sophie"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Margerison, Reuben CP"}]
The bread wheat ( Triticum aestivum ) pangenome is a patchwork of variable regions, including translocations and introgressions from progenitors and wild relatives. Although a large number of these have been documented, it is likely that many more remain unknown. To map these variable regions and make them more traceable in breeding programs, wheat accessions need to be genotyped or sequenced. The wheat genome is large and complex and consequently, sequencing efforts are often targeted through exome capture. In this study, we employed exome capture prior to sequencing 12 wheat varieties; 10 elite T. aestivum cultivars and two T. aestivum landrace accessions. Sequence coverage across chromosomes was greater toward distal regions of chromosome arms and lower in centromeric regions, reflecting the capture probe distribution which itself is determined by the known telomere to centromere gene gradient. Superimposed on this general pattern, numerous drops in sequence coverage were observed. Several of these corresponded with reported introgressions. Other drops in coverage could not be readily explained and may point to introgressions that have not, to date, been documented.
The Use and Limitations of Exome Capture to Detect Novel Variation in the Hexaploid Wheat Genome
Abstract FANCM suppresses crossovers in plants by unwinding recombination intermediates. In wheat, crossovers are skewed toward the chromosome ends, thus limiting generation of novel allelic combinations. Here, we observe that FANCM maintains the obligate crossover in tetraploid and hexaploid wheat, thus ensuring that every chromosome pair exhibits at least one crossover, by localizing class I crossover protein HEI10 at pachytene. FANCM also suppresses class II crossovers that increased 2.6-fold in fancm msh5 quadruple mutants. These data are consistent with a role for FANCM in second-end capture of class I designated crossover sites, whilst FANCM is also required to promote formation of non-crossovers. In hexaploid wheat, genetic mapping reveals that crossovers increase by 31% in fancm compared to wild type, indicating that fancm could be an effective tool to accelerate breeding. Crossover rate differences in fancm correlate with wild type crossover distributions, suggesting that chromatin may influence the recombination landscape in similar ways in both wild type and fancm .
FANCM promotes class I interfering crossovers and suppresses class II non-interfering crossovers in wheat meiosis
Since the discovery of acrylamide in food, and the identification of free asparagine as the key determinant of acrylamide concentration in wheat products, our understanding of how grain asparagine content is regulated has improved greatly. However, the targeted reduction in grain asparagine content has not been widely implemented in breeding programmes so far. Here we summarise how free asparagine concentration relates to other quality and agronomic traits and show that these relationships are unlikely to pose major issues for the breeding of low-asparagine wheat. We also outline the strategies that are possible for the breeding of low-asparagine wheat, using both natural and induced variation.
Understanding the Relationships between Free Asparagine in Grain and Other Traits to Breed Low-Asparagine Wheat
Grain yield (YLD) is a function of the total biomass (BM) and of partitioning the biomass by grains, i.e., the harvest index (HI). The most critical developmental stage for their determination is the flowering time, which mainly depends on the vernalization requirement (Vrn) and photoperiod sensitivity genes (Ppd) loci. Allelic variants at the Vrn, Ppd, and earliness per se (Eps) genes of elite spring wheat genotypes included in High Biomass Association Panel (HiBAP) I and II were used to estimate their effects on the phenological stages BM, HI, and YLD. Each panel was grown for two consecutive years in Northwest Mexico. Spring alleles at Vrn-1 had the largest effect on shortening the time to anthesis, and the Ppd-insensitive allele Ppd-D1a had the most significant positive effect on YLD in both panels. In addition, alleles at TaTOE-B1 and TaFT3-B1 promoted between 3.8% and 7.6% higher YLD and 4.2% and 10.2% higher HI in HiBAP I and II, respectively. When the possible effects of the TaTOE-B1 and TaFT3-B1 alleles on the sink and source traits were explored, the favorable allele at TaTOE-B1 showed positive effects on several sink traits mainly related to grain number. The favorable alleles at TaFT3-B1 followed a different pattern, with positive effects on the traits related to grain weight. The results of this study expanded the wheat breeders’ toolbox in the quest to breed better-adapted and higher-yielding wheat cultivars.
Effect of Flowering Time-Related Genes on Biomass, Harvest Index, and Grain Yield in CIMMYT Elite Spring Bread Wheat
Abstract Background Bread wheat ( Triticum aestivum ) is a major source of nutrition globally, but yields can be seriously compromised by water limitation. Redistribution of growth between shoots and roots is a common response to drought, promoting plant survival, but reducing yield. Gibberellins (GAs) are necessary for shoot and root elongation, but roots maintain growth at lower GA concentrations compared with shoots, making GA a suitable hormone for mediating this growth redistribution. In this study, the effect of progressive drought on GA content was determined in the base of the 4th leaf and root tips of wheat seedlings, containing the growing regions, as well as in the remaining leaf and root tissues. In addition, the contents of other selected hormones known to be involved in stress responses were determined. Transcriptome analysis was performed on equivalent tissues and drought-associated differential expression was determined for hormone-related genes. Results After 5 days of applying progressive drought to 10-day old seedlings, the length of leaf 4 was reduced by 31% compared with watered seedlings and this was associated with significant decreases in the concentrations of bioactive GA1 and GA4 in the leaf base, as well as of their catabolites and precursors. Root length was unaffected by drought, while GA concentrations were slightly, but significantly higher in the tips of droughted roots compared with watered plants. Transcripts for the GA-inactivating gene TaGA2ox4 were elevated in the droughted leaf, while those for several GA-biosynthesis genes were reduced by drought, but mainly in the non-growing region. In response to drought the concentrations of abscisic acid, cis- zeatin and its riboside increased in all tissues, indole-acetic acid was unchanged, while trans -zeatin and riboside, jasmonate and salicylic acid concentrations were reduced. Conclusions Reduced leaf elongation and maintained root growth in wheat seedlings subjected to progressive drought were associated with attenuated and increased GA content, respectively, in the growing regions. Despite increased TaGA2ox4 expression, lower GA levels in the leaf base of droughted plants were due to reduced biosynthesis rather than increased catabolism. In contrast to GA, the other hormones analysed responded to drought similarly in the leaf and roots, indicating organ-specific differential regulation of GA metabolism in response to drought.
Changes in the concentrations and transcripts for gibberellins and other hormones in a growing leaf and roots of wheat seedlings in response to water restriction
[{"name":"Urban, Martin", "type":"first", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden AL5 2JQ, UK"}, {"name":"Cuzick, Alayne", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden AL5 2JQ, UK"}, {"name":"Seager, James", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden AL5 2JQ, UK"}, {"name":"Wood, Valerie", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1GA, UK"}, {"name":"Rutherford, Kim", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1GA, UK"}, {"name":"Venkatesh, Shilpa Yagwakote", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Molecular Connections, Kandala Mansions, Kariappa Road, Basavanagudi, Bengaluru 560 004, India"}, {"name":"Sahu, Jashobanta", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Molecular Connections, Kandala Mansions, Kariappa Road, Basavanagudi, Bengaluru 560 004, India"}, {"name":"Iyer, S Vijaylakshmi", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Molecular Connections, Kandala Mansions, Kariappa Road, Basavanagudi, Bengaluru 560 004, India"}, {"name":"Khamari, Lokanath", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Molecular Connections, Kandala Mansions, Kariappa Road, Basavanagudi, Bengaluru 560 004, India"}, {"name":"De Silva, Nishadi", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Martinez, Manuel Carbajo", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Pedro, Helder", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Yates, Andrew D", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Hammond-Kosack, Kim E", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden AL5 2JQ, UK"}]
[{"name":"Alemu, Sisay Kidane", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Huluka, Ayele Badebo", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Tesfaye, Kassahun", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Haileselassie, Teklehaimanot", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Uauy, Cristobal", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Accurate segregation of chromosomes at the first meiotic division relies upon the establishment of physical connections between homologous chromosomes, which with a few exceptions, are realized by crossover recombination. Recombination also reshuffles genetic information between homologs, and thus strongly influences genome evolution. At the molecular level, meiotic recombination is initiated by the programmed induction of DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) and their subsequent repair as a crossover (CO) or a non-crossover (NCO). However, COs are constrained and the majority of DSBs are repaired as NCOs in plants. Gutierrez Pinzon et al. provide a comprehensive overview of the most recent findings on the different steps controlling meiotic recombination, with an emphasis on the different anti-CO pathways. Notably, one of these, involving the RecQ4 helicase, has previously been shown to be active in Arabidopsis, rice, pea and tomato (Séguéla-Arnaud et al., 2015; Mieulet et al., 2018). Arrieta et al. extend this anti-CO role to the cereal barley. Through a suppressor screen of a CO-defective mutant, they show that mutating the RecQ4 gene in Barley can increase meiotic recombination by nearly two-fold. The RecQ4 anti-CO pathway, initially discovered in Arabidopsis, appears thus largely conserved and translatable to cereals. Mechanisms of meiotic recombination are thus largely conserved across plant kingdom. Nevertheless specificities exist, as nicely illustrated by the characterization of the maize checkpoint clamp loader RAD17 by Zhang et al. RAD17 is not essential for meiotic DSB repair in Arabidopsis, while rice Osrad17 mutants exhibit extensive meiotic chromosome fragmentation leading to male and female sterility (Hu et al., 2018). Here, Zhang et al., demonstrate that RAD17 is also essential for meiotic DSB repair in maize but, remarkably and contrary to rice, only in male meiosis. Thus, besides underlining the importance of studying various plant species, this work also points to important differences between male and female meiosis (highlighted by Gutierrez Pinzon et al.). New issues have also recently emerged at the forefront of research on meiotic recombination. First, considering the impact of global warming, understanding how temperature affects meiosis has become a major challenge and recent breakthroughs have been comprehensively described by Gutierrez Pinzon et al. Second, Dziegielewski and Ziolkowski present an extensive review of the knowledge around non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) and their impact on plant meiosis. NcRNAs are key players in many biological processes, but their role in meiosis has remained elusive. An interesting proposal of Dziegielewski and Ziolkowski is that ncRNA pathways regulate meiosis through the controlled expression of meiosis-specific genes and this role may have evolved as a secondary effect of their primary function in the control of transposable elements in germ cells.
Meiotic Recombination and DNA Repair: New Approaches to Solve Old Questions in Model and Non-model Plant Species
A dataset of promoter and 5’UTR sequences of homoeo-alleles of 495 wheat genes that contribute to agriculturally important traits in 95 ancestral and commercial wheat cultivars is presented here. The high stringency myBaits technology used made individual capture of homoeo-allele promoters possible, which is reported here for the first time. Promoters of most genes are remarkably conserved across the 82 hexaploid cultivars used with <7 haplotypes per promoter and 21% being identical to the reference Chinese Spring. InDels and many high-confidence SNPs are located within predicted plant transcription factor binding sites, potentially changing gene expression. Most haplotypes found in the Watkins landraces and a few haplotypes found in T. monococcum, germplasms hitherto not thought to have been used in modern wheat breeding, are already found in many commercial hexaploid wheats. The full dataset which is useful for genomic and gene function studies and wheat breeding is available at https://rrescloud.rothamsted.ac.uk/index.php/s/3vc9QopcqYEbIUs/authenticate.
Exploring the diversity of promoter and 5’UTR sequences in ancestral, historic and modern wheat
Despite the significant inroads into increasing agricultural productivity in recent decades, nitrogen remains a key limiting factor for crop growth and yield. Though highly variable globally, the amount of reactive N added yearly onto cropland that is subsequently lost to the environment remains high. As such the interest in agronomic approaches to address this and improve nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is currently very high. Here, we have shown the combined approaches of management interventions such as no-till, intercropping with leguminous and grass species, use of nitrogen inhibitors, and combined crop-livestock systems offer considerable potential for enhancing NUE and are already being readily deployed in the tropics. Grass species such as Brachiaria in particular have demonstrated enormous potential via their deep root architectures to reduce losses by leaching. However, the potential for increases in NUE through interaction and association of the root systems with the soil microbial community via rhizodeposits remains a major area for future research. Increasingly it is recognized that truly enhancing NUE requires consideration of the whole system. Improving NUE is not simply a matter of how much fertilizer is used but also the need for a deeper understanding of the interactions between nutrients, plants, microbes, and soils under specific agronomic situations such as the integrated maize/grass-livestock systems that are now regularly employed in the tropics. This more holistic approach to the management of nitrogen offers considerable benefits that can hopefully be realized not only from an agricultural perspective but also from an environmental and socioeconomic view point.
Enhanced Plant Rooting and Crop System Management for Improved N Use Efficiency
[{"name":"Chen, Zhiwei", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Li, Luli", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Halford, Nigel G.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Xu, Hongwei", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Huang, Linli", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Gao, Runhong", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Lu, Ruiju", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Liu, Chenghong", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Paul, Matthew J."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Miret, Javier A."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Griffiths, Cara A."}]
Although most flowering plants are polyploid, little is known of how the meiotic process evolves after polyploidisation to stabilise and preserve fertility. On wheat polyploidisation, the major meiotic gene ZIP4 on chromosome 3B duplicated onto 5B and diverged (TaZIP4-B2). TaZIP4-B2 was recently shown to promote homologous pairing, synapsis and crossover, and suppress homoeologous crossover. We therefore suspected that these meiotic stabilising effects could be important for preserving wheat fertility. A CRISPR Tazip4-B2 mutant was exploited to assess the contribution of the 5B duplicated ZIP4 copy in maintaining pollen viability and grain setting. Analysis demonstrated abnormalities in 56% of meiocytes in the Tazip4-B2 mutant, with micronuclei in 50% of tetrads, reduced size in 48% of pollen grains and a near 50% reduction in grain number. Further studies showed that most of the reduced grain number occurred when Tazip4-B2 mutant plants were pollinated with the less viable Tazip4-B2 mutant pollen rather than with wild type pollen, suggesting that the stabilising effect of TaZIP4-B2 on meiosis has a greater consequence in subsequent male, rather than female gametogenesis. These studies reveal the extraordinary value of the wheat chromosome 5B TaZIP4-B2 duplication to agriculture and human nutrition. Future studies should further investigate the role of TaZIP4-B2 on female fertility and assess whether different TaZIP4-B2 alleles exhibit variable effects on meiotic stabilisation and/or resistance to temperature change.
A Duplicated Copy of the Meiotic Gene ZIP4 Preserves up to 50% Pollen Viability and Grain Number in Polyploid Wheat
[{"type": "first", "name": "Xiao, Feng"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Li, Weiwei"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Xiao, Minghui"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Yang, Zongfeng"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Cheng, Wangda"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Gao, Shang"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Li, Ganghua"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Ding, Yanfeng"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Paul, Matthew J."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Liu, Zhenghui"}]
Understanding the mechanisms of iron trafficking in plants is key to enhancing the nutritional quality of crops. Because it is difficult to image iron in transit, we currently have an incomplete picture of the route(s) of iron translocation in developing seeds and how the tissue-specific distribution is established. We have used a novel approach, combining iron-57 (57Fe) isotope labelling and nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS), to visualize iron translocation between tissues and within cells in immature wheat grain, Triticum aestivum. This enabled us to track the main route of iron transport from maternal tissues to the embryo through the different cell types. Further evidence for this route was provided by genetically diverting iron into storage vacuoles, with confirmation provided by histological staining and transmission electron microscopy energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (TEM-EDS). Almost all iron in both control and transgenic grains was found in intracellular bodies, indicating symplastic rather than apoplastic transport. Furthermore, a new type of iron body, highly enriched in 57Fe, was observed in aleurone cells and may represent iron being delivered to phytate globoids. Correlation of the 57Fe enrichment profiles obtained by NanoSIMS with tissue-specific gene expression provides an updated model of iron homeostasis in cereal grains with relevance for future biofortification strategies.
Subcellular dynamics studies of iron reveal how tissue‐specific distribution patterns are established in developing wheat grains
The high molecular weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GSs) are key determinants of the processing properties of wheat and over-expression of HMW-GS by transgenesis has therefore been widely studied as a strategy to improve grain quality. Two routes of protein body (PB) formation operate in the developing endosperm, with glutenin-rich PBs being formed by direct accumulation within the lumen of the ER and most gliadins being transported via the Golgi apparatus and deposited within the vacuole. However, nothing is known about the effects of HMW-GS over-expression on the operation of these routes. In this study, light microscopy was used to determine the morphology and distribution of protein bodies in developing and mature grains of transgenic wheat with high over-expression of HMW-GS 1Dx5. Many small ER-derived PBs were observed in the cytoplasm of endosperm cells in the transgenic line, but very few in control grains. Immunofluorescence microscopy showed that these smaller PBs contained mainly HMW-GSs. Image analysis confirmed that the number of the smallest PBs was significantly higher in sub-aleurone cells. The segregation of the HMW-GS in ER-derived PBs may affect grain processing quality as over-expressions of HMW-GS 1Dx5 is known to result in the formation of insoluble polymers and an over-strong dough phenotype.
High molecular weight glutenin subunit (HMW-GS) 1Dx5 is concentrated in small protein bodies when overexpressed in wheat starchy endosperm
The Global Wheat Head Detection (GWHD) dataset was created in 2020 and has assembled 193,634 labelled wheat heads from 4700 RGB images acquired from various acquisition platforms and 7 countries/institutions. With an associated competition hosted in Kaggle, GWHD_2020 has successfully attracted attention from both the computer vision and agricultural science communities. From this first experience, a few avenues for improvements have been identified regarding data size, head diversity, and label reliability. To address these issues, the 2020 dataset has been reexamined, relabeled, and complemented by adding 1722 images from 5 additional countries, allowing for 81,553 additional wheat heads. We now release in 2021 a new version of the Global Wheat Head Detection dataset, which is bigger, more diverse, and less noisy than the GWHD_2020 version.
Global Wheat Head Detection 2021: An Improved Dataset for Benchmarking Wheat Head Detection Methods
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
[{"type": "first", "name": "Shewry, Peter R."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "America, Antoine H.P."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Lovegrove, Alison"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Wood, Abigail J."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Plummer, Amy"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Evans, Jessica"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "van den Broeck, Hetty C."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Gilissen, Luud"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Mumm, Roland"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Ward, Jane L."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Proos, Zsuzsan"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Kuiper, Petra"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Longin, C. Friedrich H."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Andersson, Annica A.M."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Philip van Straaten, Jan"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Jonkers, Daisy"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Brouns, Fred"}]
Under future CMIP5 climate change scenarios for 2050, an increase in wheat yield of about 10% is predicted in Great Britain (GB) as a result of the combined effect of CO 2 fertilization and a shift in phenology. Compared to the present day, crops escape increases in the climate impacts of drought and heat stresses on grain yield by developing before these stresses can occur. In the future, yield losses from water stress over a growing season will remain about the same across Great Britain with losses reaching around 20% of potential yield, while losses from drought around flowering will decrease and account for about 9% of water limited yield. Yield losses from heat stress around flowering will remain negligible in the future. These conclusions are drawn from a modelling study based on the response of the Sirius wheat simulation model to local-scale 2050-climate scenarios derived from 19 Global Climate Models from the CMIP5 ensemble at 25 locations representing current or potential wheat-growing areas in GB. However, depending on susceptibility to water stress, substantial interannual yield variation between locations is predicted, in some cases suggesting low wheat yield stability. For this reason, local-scale studies should be performed to evaluate uncertainties in yield prediction related to future weather patterns.
Local impacts of climate change on winter wheat in Great Britain
[{"type": "first", "name": "Raffan, Sarah"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Kaur, Navneet"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Halford, Nigel G."}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Shewry, Peter R."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Lafiandra, Domenico"}]
Globally, bread wheat production is threatened by fungal diseases, including the devastating disease Septoria tritici blotch (STB). Given the global importance of STB, and the difficulty in identifying novel sources of resistance to this disease, we screened a variety of wheat genotypes, including wild, ancestral, and mutagenized lines, for their STB response. This delineated a panel of wild wheat relatives and Watkins collection lines with exceptional resistance to a range of Zymoseptoria tritici isolates, some of which are highly virulent on modern, elite wheat varieties. Additionally, we characterized the STB susceptibility of 500 lines of the wheat cultivar Cadenza TILLING population and developed backcross derivatives of two TILLING lines that show dominant partial resistance to STB. These backcross lines are partially resistant to multiple isolates of Z. tritici, and, with the wild and ancestral lines identified, provide a useful reservoir of STB-resistant germplasm for use in wheat breeding programmes.
Evaluation of the susceptibility of modern, wild, ancestral, and mutational wheat lines to Septoria tritici blotch disease
[{"type": "first", "name": "Vengavasi, Krishnapriya"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Pandey, Renu"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Soumya, P. R."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Hawkesford, Malcolm J."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Siddique, Kadambot H. M."}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Da Ines, Olivier"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Choi, Kyuha"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Pradillo, Mónica"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Lambing, Christophe"}]
[{"name":"Petersen, Krischan", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kraus, David", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Calanca, Pierluigi", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Semenov, Mikhail A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Butterbach-Bahl, Klaus", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kiese, Ralf", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"name":"Paul, Matthew J.", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}]
During recent years there have been several parallel trends in popular books and social media suggesting that the consumption of bread made from ‘modern bread wheat’ is bad for health: a) bread contains gluten exorphins which cause the ever-increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity, b) due to intensive breeding and selection, modern bread wheat has an increased gluten content, c) ancient wheats are healthier because they contain less gluten. These messages have led to increasing public concern about the safety of eating bread and other gluten-containing foods and to the promotion of a gluten-free diet as a basis for better health. Here we discuss these concerns.
[{"type": "first", "name": "Kanyuka, Kostya"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Igna, Alina A."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Solomon, Peter S."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Oliver, Richard P."}]
[{"name":"Shorinola, Oluwaseyi", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Simmonds, James", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Wingen, Luzie U.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Gardner, Keith", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Uauy, Cristobal", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
The xylan backbone of arabinoxylan (AX), the major cell wall polysaccharide in the wheat starchy endosperm, is synthesised by xylan synthase which is a complex of three subunits encoded by the GT43_1, GT43_2 and GT47_2 genes. RNAi knock-down of either GT43_1 or all three genes (triple lines) resulted in decreased AX measured by digestion with endoxylanase (to 33 and 34.9% of the controls) and by monosaccharide analysis (to 45.9% and 47.4% of the controls) with greater effects on the amount of water-extractable AX (to 20.6 and 19.9% of the controls). Both sets of RNAi lines also had greater decreases in the amounts of substituted oligosaccharides released by digestion of AX with endoxylanase than in fragments derived only from the xylan backbone. Although the GT43_1 and triple lines had similar effects on AX they did differ in their contents of soluble sugars (increased in triple only) and on grain size (decreased in triple only). Both sets of transgenic lines had decreased grain hardness, indicating effects on cell wall mechanics. These results, and previously published studies of RNAi suppression of GT43_2 and GT47_2 and of a triple mutant of GT43_2, are consistent with the model of xylan synthase comprising three subunits one of which (GT47_2) is responsible for catalysis with the other two subunits being required for correct functioning but indicate that separate xylan synthase complexes may be responsible for the synthesis of populations of AX which differ in their structure and solubility.
RNAi suppression of xylan synthase genes in wheat starchy endosperm
[{"name":"Hammond‐Kosack, Michael C.U.", "type":"first", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection Rothamsted Research Harpenden UK"}, {"name":"King, Robert", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Computational and Analytical Sciences Rothamsted Research Harpenden UK"}, {"name":"Kanyuka, Kostya", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection Rothamsted Research Harpenden UK"}, {"name":"Hammond‐Kosack, Kim E.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection Rothamsted Research Harpenden UK"}]
Abstract Crop multi-model ensembles (MME) have proven to be effective in increasing the accuracy of simulations in modelling experiments. However, the ability of MME to capture crop responses to changes in sowing dates and densities has not yet been investigated. These management interventions are some of the main levers for adapting cropping systems to climate change. Here, we explore the performance of a MME of 29 wheat crop models to predict the effect of changing sowing dates and rates on yield and yield components, on two sites located in a high-yielding environment in New Zealand. The experiment was conducted for 6 years and provided 50 combinations of sowing date, sowing density and growing season. We show that the MME simulates seasonal growth of wheat well under standard sowing conditions, but fails under early sowing and high sowing rates. The comparison between observed and simulated in-season fraction of intercepted photosynthetically active radiation (FIPAR) for early sown wheat shows that the MME does not capture the decrease of crop above ground biomass during winter months due to senescence. Models need to better account for tiller competition for light, nutrients, and water during vegetative growth, and early tiller senescence and tiller mortality, which are exacerbated by early sowing, high sowing densities, and warmer winter temperatures.
Simulation of winter wheat response to variable sowing dates and densities in a high-yielding environment
[{"name":"Yates, Andrew D", "type":"first", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Allen, James", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Amode, Ridwan M", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Azov, Andrey G", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Barba, Matthieu", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Becerra, Andrés", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Bhai, Jyothish", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Campbell, Lahcen I", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Carbajo Martinez, Manuel", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Chakiachvili, Marc", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Chougule, Kapeel", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1 Bungtown Rd, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA"}, {"name":"Christensen, Mikkel", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Contreras-Moreira, Bruno", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Cuzick, Alayne", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Rothamsted Research, Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection, Harpenden, Hertfordshire AL5 2JQ, UK"}, {"name":"Da Rin Fioretto, Luca", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Davis, Paul", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"De Silva, Nishadi H", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Diamantakis, Stavros", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Dyer, Sarah", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Elser, Justin", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA"}, {"name":"Filippi, Carla V", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Gall, Astrid", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Grigoriadis, Dionysios", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Guijarro-Clarke, Cristina", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Gupta, Parul", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA"}, {"name":"Hammond-Kosack, Kim E", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Rothamsted Research, Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection, Harpenden, Hertfordshire AL5 2JQ, UK"}, {"name":"Howe, Kevin L", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Jaiswal, Pankaj", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA"}, {"name":"Kaikala, Vinay", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Kumar, Vivek", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1 Bungtown Rd, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA"}, {"name":"Kumari, Sunita", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1 Bungtown Rd, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA"}, {"name":"Langridge, Nick", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Le, Tuan", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Luypaert, Manuel", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Maslen, Gareth L", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Maurel, Thomas", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Moore, Benjamin", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Muffato, Matthieu", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Mushtaq, Aleena", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Naamati, Guy", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Naithani, Sushma", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA"}, {"name":"Olson, Andrew", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1 Bungtown Rd, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA"}, {"name":"Parker, Anne", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Paulini, Michael", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Pedro, Helder", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Perry, Emily", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Preece, Justin", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA"}, {"name":"Quinton-Tulloch, Mark", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Rodgers, Faye", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton CB10 1SA, UK"}, {"name":"Rosello, Marc", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Ruffier, Magali", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Seager, James", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Rothamsted Research, Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection, Harpenden, Hertfordshire AL5 2JQ, UK"}, {"name":"Sitnik, Vasily", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Szpak, Michal", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Tate, John", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Tello-Ruiz, Marcela K", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1 Bungtown Rd, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA"}, {"name":"Trevanion, Stephen J", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Urban, Martin", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Rothamsted Research, Department of Biointeractions and Crop Protection, Harpenden, Hertfordshire AL5 2JQ, UK"}, {"name":"Ware, Doreen", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1 Bungtown Rd, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA"}, {"name":"Wei, Sharon", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1 Bungtown Rd, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA"}, {"name":"Williams, Gary", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Winterbottom, Andrea", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Zarowiecki, Magdalena", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Finn, Robert D", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}, {"name":"Flicek, Paul", "type":"additional", "affiliation":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK"}]
[{"name":"Oddy, Joseph", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Raffan, Sarah", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Wilkinson, Mark D.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Elmore, J. Stephen", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Halford, Nigel G.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Senapati, Nimai"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Semenov, Mikhail A."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Halford, Nigel G."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Hawkesford, Malcolm J."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Asseng, Senthold"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Cooper, Mark"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Ewert, Frank"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "van Ittersum, Martin K."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Martre, Pierre"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Olesen, Jørgen E."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Reynolds, Matthew"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Rötter, Reimund P."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Webber, Heidi"}]
The dietary contributions of iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) from cereals are determined by concentrations, locations and chemical forms. A genetically biofortified wheat line showed higher concentrations of Zn and Fe than three control lines when grown over two years. The mineral distributions determined using imaging (histochemical staining and LA-ICP-MS), sequential pearling and hand dissection showed no consistent differences between the two lines. Fe was most abundant in the aleurone layer and the scutellum and Zn in the scutellar epithelium, the endosperm transfer cells and embryonic axis. Pearling fractions showed positive correlations between the concentration of P and those of Zn and Fe in all fractions except the outermost layer. This is consistent with Fe and Zn being concentrated in phytates. Developing grains showed decreasing gradients in concentration from the proximal to the distal ends. The concentrations of Fe and Zn were therefore higher in the biofortified line than the control lines but their locations did not differ.
Localisation of iron and zinc in grain of biofortified wheat
The productivity of permanent temperate cut grasslands is mainly driven by weather, soil characteristics, botanical composition and management. To adapt management to climate change, adjusting the cutting dates to reflect earlier onset of growth and expansion of the vegetation period is particularly important. Simulations of cut grassland productivity under climate change scenarios demands management settings to be dynamically derived from actual plant development rather than using static values derived from current management operations. This is even more important in the alpine region, where the predicted temperature increase is twice as high as compared to the global or Northern Hemispheric average. For this purpose, we developed a dynamic management module that provides timing of cutting and manuring events when running the biogeochemical model LandscapeDNDC. We derived the dynamic management rules from long-term harvest measurements and monitoring data collected at pre-alpine grassland sites located in S-Germany and belonging to the TERENO monitoring network. We applied the management module for simulations of two grassland sites covering the period 2011–2100 and driven by scenarios that reflect the two representative concentration pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 and evaluated yield developments of different management regimes. The management module was able to represent timing of current management operations in high agreement with several years of field observations (r² > 0.88). Even more, the shift of the first cutting dates scaled to a +1 °C temperature increase simulated with the climate change scenarios (−9.1 to −17.1 days) compared well to the shift recorded by the German Weather Service (DWD) in the study area from 1991−2016 (−9.4 to −14.0 days). In total, the shift in cutting dates and expansion of the growing season resulted in 1−2 additional cuts per year until 2100. Thereby, climate change increased yields of up to 6 % and 15 % in the RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios with highest increases mainly found for dynamically adapted grassland management going along with increasing fertilization rates. In contrast, no or only minor yield increases were associated with simulations restricted to fertilization rates of 170 kg N ha−1 yr−1 as required by national legislations. Our study also shows that yields significantly decreased in drought years, when soil moisture is limiting plant growth but due to comparable high precipitation and water holding capacity of soils, this was observed mainly in the RCP 8.5 scenario in the last decades of the century.
Dynamic simulation of management events for assessing impacts of climate change on pre-alpine grassland productivity
The number of meiotic crossovers is tightly controlled and most depend on pro-crossover ZMM proteins, such as the E3 ligase HEI10. Despite the importance of HEI10 dosage for crossover formation, how HEI10 transcription is controlled remains unexplored. In a forward genetic screen using a fluorescent crossover reporter in Arabidopsis thaliana, we identify heat shock factor binding protein (HSBP) as a repressor of HEI10 transcription and crossover numbers. Using genome-wide crossover mapping and cytogenetics, we show that hsbp mutations or meiotic HSBP knockdowns increase ZMM-dependent crossovers toward the telomeres, mirroring the effects of HEI10 overexpression. Through RNA sequencing, DNA methylome, and chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis, we reveal that HSBP is required to repress HEI10 transcription by binding with heat shock factors (HSFs) at the HEI10 promoter and maintaining DNA methylation over the HEI10 5′ untranslated region. Our findings provide insights into how the temperature response regulator HSBP restricts meiotic HEI10 transcription and crossover number by attenuating HSF activity.
Arabidopsis HEAT SHOCK FACTOR BINDING PROTEIN is required to limit meiotic crossovers and HEI10 transcription
While the understanding of average impacts of climate change on crop yields is improving, few assessments have quantified expected impacts on yield distributions and the risk of yield failures. Here we present the relative distribution as a method to assess how the risk of yield failure due to heat and drought stress (measured in terms of return period between yields falling 15% below previous five year Olympic average yield) responds to changes of the underlying yield distributions under climate change. Relative distributions are used to capture differences in the entire yield distribution between baseline and climate change scenarios, and to further decompose them into changes in the location and shape of the distribution. The methodology is applied here for the case of rainfed wheat and grain maize across Europe using an ensemble of crop models under three climate change scenarios with simulations conducted at 25 km resolution. Under climate change, maize generally displayed shorter return periods of yield failures (with changes under RCP 4.5 between −0.3 and 0 years compared to the baseline scenario) associated with a shift of the yield distribution towards lower values and changes in shape of the distribution that further reduced the frequency of high yields. This response was prominent in the areas characterized in the baseline scenario by high yields and relatively long return periods of failure. Conversely, for wheat, yield failures were projected to become less frequent under future scenarios (with changes in the return period of −0.1 to +0.4 years under RCP 4.5) and were associated with a shift of the distribution towards higher values and a change in shape increasing the frequency of extreme yields at both ends. Our study offers an approach to quantify the changes in yield distributions that drive crop yield failures. Actual risk assessments additionally require models that capture the variety of drivers determining crop yield variability and scenario climate input data that samples the range of probable climate variation.
Methodology to assess the changing risk of yield failure due to heat and drought stress under climate change
Septoria tritici blotch (STB), caused by the fungus Zymoseptoria tritici, is one of the most economically important diseases of wheat. Recently, both factors of a gene-for-gene interaction between Z. tritici and wheat, the wheat receptor-like kinase Stb6 and the Z. tritici secreted effector protein AvrStb6, have been identified. Previous analyses revealed a high diversity of AvrStb6 haplotypes present in earlier Z. tritici isolate collections, with up to c.18% of analysed isolates possessing the avirulence isoform of AvrStb6 identical to that originally identified in the reference isolate IPO323. With Stb6 present in many commercial wheat cultivars globally, we aimed to assess potential changes in AvrStb6 genetic diversity and the incidence of haplotypes allowing evasion of Stb6-mediated resistance in more recent Z. tritici populations. Here we show, using targeted resequencing of AvrStb6, that this gene is universally present in field isolates sampled from major wheat-growing regions of the world in 2013–2017. However, in contrast to the data from previous AvrStb6 population studies, we report a complete absence of the originally described avirulence isoform of AvrStb6 amongst modern Z. tritici isolates. Moreover, a remarkably small number of haplotypes, each encoding AvrStb6 protein isoforms conditioning virulence on Stb6-containing wheat, were found to predominate among modern Z. tritici isolates. A single virulence isoform of AvrStb6 was found to be particularly abundant throughout the global population. These findings indicate that, despite the ability of Z. tritici to sexually reproduce on resistant hosts, AvrStb6 avirulence haplotypes tend to be eliminated in subsequent populations.
Remarkable recent changes in the genetic diversity of the avirulence gene AvrStb6 in global populations of the wheat pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici
[{"type": "first", "name": "Suravi, K.N."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Attenborough, K."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Taherzadeh, S."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Macdonald, A.J."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Powlson, D.S."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Ashton, R.W."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Whalley, W.R."}]
[{"name":"Xu, Hongwei", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Li, Yingbo", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Gao, Runhong", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Xu, Rugen", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Guo, Guimei", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Lu, Ruiju", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Halford, Nigel G.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Chen, Zhiwei", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Liu, Chenghong", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Wheat is an important staple food globally, providing a significant contribution to daily energy, fiber, and micronutrient intake. Observational evidence for health impacts of consuming more whole grains, among which wheat is a major contributor, points to significant risk reduction for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and colon cancer. However, specific wheat components may also elicit adverse physical reactions in susceptible individuals such as celiac disease (CD) and wheat allergy (WA). Recently, broad coverage in the popular and social media has suggested that wheat consumption leads to a wide range of adverse health effects. This has motivated many consumers to avoid or reduce their consumption of foods that contain wheat/gluten, despite the absence of diagnosed CD or WA, raising questions about underlying mechanisms and possible nocebo effects. However, recent studies did show that some individuals may suffer from adverse reactions in absence of CD and WA. This condition is called non‐celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) or non‐celiac wheat sensitivity (NCWS). In addition to gluten, wheat and derived products contain many other components which may trigger symptoms, including inhibitors of α‐amylase and trypsin (ATIs), lectins, and rapidly fermentable carbohydrates (FODMAPs). Furthermore, the way in which foods are being processed, such as the use of yeast or sourdough fermentation, fermentation time and baking conditions, may also affect the presence and bioactivity of these components. The present review systematically describes the characteristics of wheat‐related intolerances, including their etiology, prevalence, the components responsible, diagnosis, and strategies to reduce adverse reactions.
Adverse Reactions to Wheat or Wheat Components
Raw sequence reads for RenSeq on Sr27 carrying triticale variety Coorong and 4 susceptible EMS mutants
[{"type": "first", "name": "Edwards, Christine"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "McNerney, Calum C."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Lawton, Linda A."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Palmer, Joseph"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Macgregor, Kenneth"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Jack, Frances"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Cockburn, Peter"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Plummer, Amy"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Lovegrove, Alison"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Wood, Abigail"}]
The agri-food sector and supply chain is a foundational component of society and is required for healthy populations across the globe. Feeding the world, not only with enough calories, but with nutritious food that has been sustainably sourced and processed, is a continuous and developing challenge. Despite this, careers in research and development opportunities in the agri-food sector have less visibility in comparison to other sectors, and we argue that agri-food remains under-represented in education and training, from school through to higher education. In this perspective, we explore how diversity in people, skills and education contributes to the agri-food sector, and how fostering this diversity could help to solve some of the big challenges faced in 2021 and beyond. Specific focus is given to education and training schemes, and the lack of agri-food topics in relevant science degrees.
Feeding the future: developing the skills landscape in the agri‐food sector
The hexaploid bread wheat genome comprises over 16 gigabases of sequence across 21 chromosomes. Meiotic crossovers are highly polarized along the chromosomes, with elevation in the gene-dense distal regions and suppression in the Gypsy retrotransposon-dense centromere-proximal regions. We profiled the genomic landscapes of the meiotic recombinase DMC1 and the chromosome axis protein ASY1 in wheat and investigated their relationships with crossovers, chromatin state, and genetic diversity. DMC1 and ASY1 chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing (ChIP-seq) revealed strong co-enrichment in the distal, crossover-active regions of the wheat chromosomes. Distal ChIP-seq enrichment is consistent with spatiotemporally biased cytological immunolocalization of DMC1 and ASY1 close to the telomeres during meiotic prophase I. DMC1 and ASY1 ChIP-seq peaks show significant overlap with genes and transposable elements in the Mariner and Mutator superfamilies. However, DMC1 and ASY1 ChIP-seq peaks were detected along the length of each chromosome, including in low-crossover regions. At the fine scale, crossover elevation at DMC1 and ASY1 peaks and genes correlates with enrichment of the Polycomb histone modification H3K27me3. This indicates a role for facultative heterochromatin, coincident with high DMC1 and ASY1, in promoting crossovers in wheat and is reflected in distalized H3K27me3 enrichment observed via ChIP-seq and immunocytology. Genes with elevated crossover rates and high DMC1 and ASY1 ChIP-seq signals are overrepresented for defense-response and immunity annotations, have higher sequence polymorphism, and exhibit signatures of selection. Our findings are consistent with meiotic recombination promoting genetic diversity, shaping host–pathogen co-evolution, and accelerating adaptation by increasing the efficiency of selection.
Crossover-active regions of the wheat genome are distinguished by DMC1, the chromosome axis, H3K27me3, and signatures of adaptation
[{"name":"Lambing, Christophe", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kuo, Pallas", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kim, Jaeil", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Osman, Kim", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Whitbread, Amy Leanne", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Yang, Jianhua", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Choi, Kyuha", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Franklin, F. Chris H.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Henderson, Ian R.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
[{"type": "first", "name": "Machado Wood, Ana K."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Panwar, Vinay"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Grimwade-Mann, Mike"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Ashfield, Tom"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Hammond-Kosack, Kim E."}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Kanyuka, Kostya"}]
[{"name":"Gaurav, Kumar", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Arora, Sanu", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Silva, Paula", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Sánchez-Martín, Javier", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Horsnell, Richard", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Gao, Liangliang", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Brar, Gurcharn S.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Widrig, Victoria", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"John Raupp, W.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Singh, Narinder", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Wu, Shuangye", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kale, Sandip M.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Chinoy, Catherine", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Nicholson, Paul", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Quiroz-Chávez, Jesús", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Simmonds, James", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hayta, Sadiye", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Smedley, Mark A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Harwood, Wendy", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Pearce, Suzannah", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Gilbert, David", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kangara, Ngonidzashe", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Gardener, Catherine", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Forner-Martínez, Macarena", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Liu, Jiaqian", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Yu, Guotai", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Boden, Scott A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Pascucci, Attilio", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Ghosh, Sreya", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hafeez, Amber N.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"O’Hara, Tom", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Waites, Joshua", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Cheema, Jitender", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Steuernagel, Burkhard", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Patpour, Mehran", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Justesen, Annemarie Fejer", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Liu, Shuyu", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Rudd, Jackie C.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Avni, Raz", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Sharon, Amir", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Steiner, Barbara", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Kirana, Rizky Pasthika", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Buerstmayr, Hermann", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Mehrabi, Ali A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Nasyrova, Firuza Y.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Chayut, Noam", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Matny, Oadi", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Steffenson, Brian J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Sandhu, Nitika", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Chhuneja, Parveen", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Lagudah, Evans", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Elkot, Ahmed F.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Tyrrell, Simon", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Bian, Xingdong", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Davey, Robert P.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Simonsen, Martin", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Schauser, Leif", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Tiwari, Vijay K.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Randy Kutcher, H.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Hucl, Pierre", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Li, Aili", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Liu, Deng-Cai", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Mao, Long", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Xu, Steven", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Brown-Guedira, Gina", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Faris, Justin", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Dvorak, Jan", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Luo, Ming-Cheng", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Krasileva, Ksenia", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Lux, Thomas", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Artmeier, Susanne", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Mayer, Klaus F. X.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Uauy, Cristobal", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Mascher, Martin", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Bentley, Alison R.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Keller, Beat", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Poland, Jesse", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Wulff, Brande B. H.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Amylase/trypsin-inhibitors (ATIs) comprise about 2–4% of the total wheat grain proteins and may contribute to natural defense against pests and pathogens. However, they are currently among the most widely studied wheat components because of their proposed role in adverse reactions to wheat consumption in humans. ATIs have long been known to contribute to IgE-mediated allergy (notably Bakers' asthma), but interest has increased since 2012 when they were shown to be able to trigger the innate immune system, with attention focused on their role in coeliac disease which affects about 1% of the population and, more recently, in non-coeliac wheat sensitivity which may affect up to 10% of the population. This has led to studies of their structure, inhibitory properties, genetics, control of expression, behavior during processing, effects on human adverse reactions to wheat and, most recently, strategies to modify their expression in the plant using gene editing. We therefore present an integrated account of this range of research, identifying inconsistencies, and gaps in our knowledge and identifying future research needs. Note This paper is the outcome of an invited international ATI expert meeting held in Amsterdam, February 3-5 2020
Wheat ATIs: Characteristics and Role in Human Disease
Crops assimilate nitrogen (N) as ammonium via the glutamine synthetase/glutamate synthase (GS/GOGAT) pathway which is of central importance for N uptake and potentially represents a bottle neck for N fertiliser-use efficiency. The aim of this study was to assess whether genetic diversity for N-assimilation capacity exists in wheat and could be exploited for breeding. Wheat plants rapidly, within 6 h, responded to N application with an increase in GS activity. This was not accompanied by an increase in GS gene transcript abundance and a comparison of GS1 and GS2 protein models revealed a high degree of sequence conservation. N responsiveness amongst ten wheat varieties was assessed by measuring GS enzyme activity, leaf tissue ammonium, and by a leaf-disc assay as a proxy for apoplastic ammonia. Based on these data, a high-GS group showing an overall positive response to N could be distinguished from an inefficient, low-GS group. Subsequent gas emission measurements confirmed plant ammonia emission in response to N application and also revealed emission of N2O when N was provided as nitrate, which is in agreement with our current understanding that N2O is a by-product of nitrate reduction. Taken together, the data suggest that there is scope for improving N assimilation capacity in wheat and that further investigations into the regulation and role of GS-GOGAT in NH3 emission is justified. Likewise, emission of the climate gas N2O needs to be reduced, and future research should focus on assessing the nitrate reductase pathway in wheat and explore fertiliser management options.
Genetic Diversity in Nitrogen Fertiliser Responses and N Gas Emission in Modern Wheat
Abstract Background Anemia is thought to affect up to 1.6 billion people worldwide. One of the major contributors to low iron (Fe) absorption is a higher proportion of cereals compared to meats and pulse crops in people’s diets. This has now become a problem in both the developed and developing world, as a result of both modern food choice and food availability. Bread wheat accounts for 20 % of the calories consumed by humans and is an important source of protein, vitamins and minerals meaning it could be a major vehicle for bringing more bioavailable Fe into the diet. Results To investigate whether breeding for higher concentrations of Fe in wheat grains could help increase Fe absorption, a multiparent advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) population, encompassing more than 80 % of UK wheat polymorphism, was grown over two seasons in the UK. The population was phenotyped for both Fe concentration and Fe bioavailability using an established Caco-2 cell bioassay. It was found that increasing Fe concentrations in the grains was not correlated with higher Fe bioavailability and that the underlying genetic regions controlling grain Fe concentrations do not co-localise with increased Fe absorption. Furthermore, we show that phytate concentrations do not correlate with Fe bioavailability in our wheat population and thus phytate-binding is insufficient to explain the lack of correlation between Fe bioavailability and Fe concentrations in the wheat grain. Finally, we observed no (Fe bioavailability) or low (Fe concentration) correlation between years for these traits, confirming that both are under strong environmental influence. Conclusions This suggests that breeders will have to select not only for Fe concentrations directly in grains, but also increased bioavailability. However the use of numerous controls and replicated trials limits the practicality of adoption of screening by Caco-2 cells by many breeders.
Genetic control of iron bioavailability is independent from iron concentration in a diverse winter wheat mapping population
Durum wheat is an important cereal grown in Ethiopia, a country which is also its center for genetic diversity. Yellow (stripe) rust caused by Puccinia striiformis fsp tritici is one of the most devastating diseases threatening Ethiopian wheat production. To identify sources of genetic resistance and combat this pathogen, we conducted a genome wide association study of yellow rust resistance on 300 durum wheat accessions comprising 261 landraces and 39 cultivars. The accessions were evaluated for their field resistance using a modified Cobb scale at Meraro, Kulumsa and Chefe Donsa in the 2015 and 2016 main growing seasons. Analysis of the 35K Axiom Array genotyping data of the panel resulted in a total of 8,797 polymorphic SNPs of which 7,093 were used in subsequent analyses. Population structure analysis suggested two groups in which the cultivars clearly stood out separately from the landraces. Eleven SNPs significantly associated with yellow rust resistance were identified on four chromosomes (1A, 1B, 2B, and 5A) which defined at least five genomic loci. Six of the SNPs were consistently identified on chromosome 1B singly at each and combined overall environments which explained 62.6–64.0% of the phenotypic variation (R2). Resistant allele frequency ranged from 14.0–71.0%; Zooming in to the identified resistance loci revealed the presence of disease resistance related genes involved in the plant defense system such as the ABC transporter gene family, disease resistance protein RPM1 (NBS-LRR class), Receptor kinases and Protein kinases. This study has provided SNPs for tracking the loci associated with yellow rust resistance and a diversity panel which can be used for association study of other agriculturally important traits in durum wheat.
Genome-wide association mapping identifies yellow rust resistance loci in Ethiopian durum wheat germplasm
[{"name":"Wright, Tally I.C.", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Gardner, Keith A.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Glahn, Raymond P.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}, {"name":"Milner, Matthew J.", "type":"additional", "affiliation":""}]
Stripe rust, caused by the fungal pathogen Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, is a major threat to wheat (Triticum spp.) production worldwide. The objective of this study was to determine the virulence of P. striiformis f. sp. tritici races prevalent in the main wheat growing regions of Kenya, which includes Mt. Kenya, Eastern Kenya, and the Rift Valley (Central, Southern, and Northern Rift). Fifty P. striiformis f. sp. tritici isolates collected from 1970 to 1992 and from 2009 to 2014 were virulence phenotyped with stripe rust differential sets, and 45 isolates were genotyped with sequence characterized amplified region (SCAR) markers to differentiate the isolates and identify aggressive strains PstS1 and PstS2. Virulence corresponding to stripe rust resistance genes Yr1, Yr2, Yr3, Yr6, Yr7, Yr8, Yr9, Yr17, Yr25, and Yr27 and the seedling resistance in genotype Avocet S were detected. Ten races were detected in the P. striiformis f. sp. tritici samples obtained from 1970 to 1992, and three additional races were detected from 2009 to 2014, with a single race being detected in both periods. The SCAR markers detected both Pst1 and Pst2 strains in the collection. Increasing P. striiformis f. sp. tritici virulence was found in the Kenyan P. striiformis f. sp. tritici population, and different P. striiformis f. sp. tritici race groups were found to dominate different wheat growing regions. Moreover, recent P. striiformis f. sp. tritici races in East Africa indicated possible migration of some race groups into Kenya from other regions. This study is important in elucidating P. striiformis f. sp. tritici evolution and virulence diversity and useful in breeding wheat cultivars with effective resistance to stripe rust.
Distribution of Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici Races and Virulence in Wheat Growing Regions of Kenya from 1970 to 2014
Background and Objectives: Research on wheat grain proteins is reviewed, including achievements over the past century and priorities for future research. The focus is on three groups of proteins that have major impacts on wheat quality and utilization: the gluten proteins which determine dough viscoelasticity but also trigger celiac disease in susceptible individuals, the puroindolines which are major determinants of grain texture and the amylase/ trypsin inhibitors which are food and respiratory allergens and are implicated in triggering celiac disease and nonceliac wheat sensitivity. Findings: Although earlier work focused on protein structure and properties, the development of genomics and high‐sensitivity proteomics has resulted in the availability of a vast amount of information on the amino acid sequences of individual wheat proteins, including allelic variants of gluten proteins which are associated with good processing quality and of puroindolines, which are associated with a hard or soft grain texture, and on protein expression and polymorphism. Conclusions: However, our ability to exploit this knowledge is limited by a lack of detailed understanding of the structure:function relationships of wheat proteins. In particular, we need to understand how the three‐dimensional structures of the individual proteins determine their interactions with other grain components (to determine functional properties) and with the immune systems of susceptible consumers (to trigger adverse responses), how these interactions are affected by allelic variation, and how they can be manipulated. Significance and Novelty: The article, therefore, identifies priorities for future research which should enable the adoption of a more rational approach to improving the quality of wheat grain proteins.
Wheat grain proteins: past, present, and future
[{"name":"Cooke, Diane Kathleene", "type":"first", "affiliation":""}]
The CerealsDB website, created by members of the Functional Genomics Group at the University of Bristol, provides access to a database containing SNP and genotyping data for hexaploid wheat and, to a lesser extent, its progenitors and several of its relatives. The site is principally aimed at plant breeders and research scientists who wish to obtain information regarding SNP markers; for example, obtain primers used for their identification or the sequences upon which they are based. The database underpinning the website contains circa one million putative varietal SNPs of which several hundreds of thousands have been experimentally validated on a range of common genotyping platforms. For each SNP marker, the site also hosts the allelic scores for thousands of elite wheat varieties, landrace cultivars, and wheat relatives. Tools are available to help negotiate and visualize the datasets. The website has been designed to be simple and straightforward to use and is completely open access.
CerealsDB: A Whistle-Stop Tour of an Open Access SNP Resource
[{"type": "first", "name": "Wang, Yan"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Chen, Qing"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Li, Yang"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Guo, Zhenru"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Liu, Caihong"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Wan, Yongfang"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Hawkesford, Malcolm"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Zhu, Jing"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Wu, Wang"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Wei, Meiqiao"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Zhao, Kan"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Jiang, Yunfeng"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Zhang, Yazhou"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Xu, Qiang"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Kong, Li"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Pu, Zhien"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Deng, Mei"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Jiang, Qiantao"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Lan, Xiujin"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Wang, Jirui"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Chen, Guoyue"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Ma, Jian"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Zheng, Youliang"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Wei, Yuming"}, {"type": "additional", "name": "Qi, Pengfei"}]