Exploitation of interspecific diversity for monocot crop improvement

TY - JOUR

T1 - Exploitation of interspecific diversity for monocot crop improvement

AU - King, Julie

AU - Armstead, Ian Peter

AU - Harper, John Albert

AU - Ramsay, Luke

AU - Snape, John

AU - Waugh, Robbie

AU - James, Caron Louise

AU - Thomas, Ann Myfanwy

AU - Gasior, Dagmara

AU - Kelly, Rhys Owen

AU - Roberts, Luned Ann

AU - Gustafson, Perry

AU - King, Ian

PY - 2013/1/16

Y1 - 2013/1/16

N2 - In many cultivated crop species there is limited genetic variation available for the development of new higher yielding varieties adapted to climate change and sustainable farming practises. The distant relatives of crop species provide a vast and largely untapped reservoir of genetic variation for a wide range of agronomically important traits that can be exploited by breeders for crop improvement. In this paper, in what we believe to be the largest introgression programme undertaken in the monocots, we describe the transfer of the entire genome of Festuca pratensis into Lolium perenne in overlapping chromosome segments. The L. perenne/F.pratensis introgressions were identified and characterised via 131 SSRs and 1612 SNPs anchored to the rice genome. Comparative analyses were undertaken to determine the syntenic relationship between L. perenne/F.pratensis and rice, wheat, barley, sorghum and Brachypodium distachyon. Analyses comparing recombination frequency and gene distribution indicated that a large proportion of the genes within the genome are located in the proximal regions of chromosomes which undergo low/very low frequencies of recombination. Thus, it is proposed that past breeding efforts to produce improved varieties have centred on the subset of genes located in the distal regions of chromosomes where recombination is highest. The use of alien introgression for crop improvement is important for meeting the challenges of global food supply and the monocots such as the forage grasses and cereals, together with recent technological advances in molecular biology can help meet these challenges.

AB - In many cultivated crop species there is limited genetic variation available for the development of new higher yielding varieties adapted to climate change and sustainable farming practises. The distant relatives of crop species provide a vast and largely untapped reservoir of genetic variation for a wide range of agronomically important traits that can be exploited by breeders for crop improvement. In this paper, in what we believe to be the largest introgression programme undertaken in the monocots, we describe the transfer of the entire genome of Festuca pratensis into Lolium perenne in overlapping chromosome segments. The L. perenne/F.pratensis introgressions were identified and characterised via 131 SSRs and 1612 SNPs anchored to the rice genome. Comparative analyses were undertaken to determine the syntenic relationship between L. perenne/F.pratensis and rice, wheat, barley, sorghum and Brachypodium distachyon. Analyses comparing recombination frequency and gene distribution indicated that a large proportion of the genes within the genome are located in the proximal regions of chromosomes which undergo low/very low frequencies of recombination. Thus, it is proposed that past breeding efforts to produce improved varieties have centred on the subset of genes located in the distal regions of chromosomes where recombination is highest. The use of alien introgression for crop improvement is important for meeting the challenges of global food supply and the monocots such as the forage grasses and cereals, together with recent technological advances in molecular biology can help meet these challenges.

KW - Introgression mapping

KW - comparative mapping

KW - recombination

KW - interspecific diversity

KW - monocots

KW - SNP markers

UR - http://hdl.handle.net/2160/9131

U2 - 10.1038/hdy.2012.116

DO - 10.1038/hdy.2012.116

M3 - Article

C2 - 23321705

VL - 110

SP - 475

EP - 483

JO - Heredity

JF - Heredity

SN - 0018-067X

ER -