NAC transcription factors contain five highly conserved subdomains which are required for protein dimerisation and DNA binding. Few residues within these subdomains have been...

One of the most important tools to identify and validate rust resistance gene function is by producing loss-of-function mutants. Mutants can be produced using irradiation,...

Variations in wheat yield are largely explained by changes in grain number per m2 which is linked to the number of fertile florets at anthesis. This, in turn is the outcome of...

The genome sequence and analysis of wheat’s progenitor provides a roadmap to enhance genomics-assisted breeding and improvement of modern wheat varieties.

Earliness per se (Eps) genes are critical for fine-tuning flowering time and likely to modify other developmental traits as well. Effects of Eps alleles on components comprising...

Kahiluoto et al. assert that climate resilience in European wheat has declined due to current breeding practices. To support this alarming claim, the authors report yield...

Polyploidization has played an important role in plant evolution. However, upon polyploidization, the process of meiosis must adapt to ensure the proper segregation of increased...

Gene regulatory networks are powerful tools which facilitate hypothesis generation and candidate gene discovery. However, the extent to which the network predictions are...

Powdery mildew is a severe disease in wheat. In barley, durable resistance exists, based on non-functionality of the Mlo gene. As a model to analyse the effects of mutagenesis...

Wheat grain development is a robust biological process that largely determines grain quality and yield. In this study, we investigated the grain transcriptome of winter wheat...

The coordinated expression of highly related homoeologous genes in polyploid species underlies the phenotypes of many of the world’s major crops. Here we combine extensive gene...

Genetic resistance is the most economic and environmentally sustainable approach for crop disease protection. Disease resistance (R) genes from wild relatives are a valuable...

The growing human population and a changing environment have raised significant concern for global food security, with the current improvement rate of several important crops...

Wild relatives provide an important source of useful traits in wheat breeding. Wheat and wild relative hybrids have been widely used in breeding programs to introduce such...

MutChromSeq is an approach for isolation of genes and DNA sequences controlling gene expression in plants with complex and polyploid genomes. It involves a lossless complexity...

MutRenSeq is a method to clone disease resistance (R) genes in plants. Tips and detailed experimental protocols for the pipeline, including the complexity reduction by R gene...

Traditionally, diagnostic tools for plant pathogens were limited to the analysis of purified pathogen isolates subjected to phenotypic characterization and/or PCR-based...

DNA is widely used in plant genetic and molecular biology studies. In this chapter, we describe how to extract DNA from wheat tissues. The tissue samples are ground to disrupt...

Variation in photoperiod sensitivity in wheat plays a major role in the crop adaptation to wide agronomic environments. Photoperiod insensitivity is provided by Ppd-Aa, Ppd-B1a...

Crop diseases reduce wheat yields by ~25% globally and thus pose a major threat to global food security1. Genetic resistance can reduce crop losses in the field and can be...