EAGER: Rapid domestication of new grass crops

世界上大多数主要的谷类作物都是在近一万年前被驯化的，很少有从那时起被开发出来的。为了科普迅速增长的人口和日益频繁的极端气候事件，需要新的、有弹性的高产谷物。虽然有可能确定新的适应性性状并将其培育到现有作物中，但这往往需要十多年的时间，而且在很大程度上取决于改良技术的可用性。作为为未来的环境适应力准备我们目前的主要作物的替代方案，驯化，改进和开发育种技术可能更有益于已经抵抗剧烈环境变化的未充分利用的谷物，如画眉草（Eragrostis tef）和画眉草家族的其他成员。画眉草是唯一已知的能够承受高温，干旱条件以及干旱和洪水的作物。尽管每天有数百万东非人食用画眉草，但这种植物并没有经过广泛的育种;即使是适度的遗传改良也会显着提高产量。为了快速改良和/或驯化画眉草家族的成员，将采用新技术将已被证明在其他谷物驯化中重要的基因的变化引入画眉草版本。 因此，这种方法可以模仿自然产生的有益农艺性状，这些性状是数千年前古代农民在其他谷类作物中选择的。 然后，从这项研究中获得的信息将应用于驯化垂穗画眉草（Eragrostis curvula），这是一种可食用的多年生画眉草亲戚，具有在不施肥的情况下产生种子的非凡能力。 画眉草是唯一已知的C4作物，能够承受高温，干旱和洪水。然而，画眉草有几个负面的农艺性状，包括高度不确定的小穗，小种子，广泛的分蘖，以及易倒伏的细茎，这些性状需要在画眉草作为一种重要的替代作物在全球范围内被采用之前进行修改。 这些问题将使用CAS9切口酶/脱氨酶融合来解决，以将SNP引入到几个已知的驯化/产量基因的负调控元件中。该项目将通过创造模仿古代农民选择的农艺性状的优势表型来启动驯化过程。作为加速驯化过程的方法的测试，在画眉草中鉴定的成功的指导RNA将随后用于尝试驯化弯画眉草（哭泣的爱草），一种有弹性的多年生植物，经历无融合生殖，在非洲被用作饥荒食物。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响进行评估，被认为值得支持审查标准。

Most of the major cereal crops in the world were domesticated nearly ten thousand years ago and very few have been developed since then. To cope with a burgeoning population and increasingly frequent and extreme climate events, new, resilient, high-yielding grains are needed. While it is possible to identify new, adaptive traits and breed them into pre-existing crops, this often takes over a decade and is highly dependent on the availability of improvement techniques. As an alternative to preparing our current staple crops for future environmental resilience, it may be more beneficial to domesticate, improve, and develop breeding techniques for underutilized grains that are already resistant to drastic environmental change, such as teff (Eragrostis tef) and other members of the Eragrostis family. Teff is the only known crop plant that is able to withstand high temperatures, arid conditions, and both drought and flooding. Despite the fact that millions of Eastern Africans consume teff every day, the plant has not undergone extensive breeding; even modest genetic improvements will increase yield dramatically. To improve and/or domesticate members of the Eragrostis family rapidly, new techniques will be employed to introduce changes into teff versions of genes that have been shown to be important in the domestication of other cereals. This approach would thus mimic the beneficial agronomic traits that arose naturally and were selected for in other cereal crops by ancient farmers thousands of years ago. The information gained from this study will then be applied to domesticate weeping lovegrass (Eragrostis curvula), an edible, perennial teff relative that has the remarkable ability to produce seeds in the absence of fertilization. Teff is the only known, C4 crop able to withstand high temperatures and both drought and flooding. However, teff has several negative agronomic traits, including highly indeterminate spikelets, small seeds, extensive tillering, and thin stems susceptible to lodging, traits that need to be modified before teff can be adopted globally as a serious alternative crop. These issues will be addressed using CAS9 nickase/deaminase fusions to introduce SNPs into the negative regulatory elements of several known domestication/yield genes. This project will jump-start the domestication process by creating dominant, advantageous phenotypes mimicking the agronomic traits selected for by ancient farmers. As a test of this approach to speeding the domestication process, successful guide RNAs identified in teff will then be used to attempt to domesticate Eragrostis curvula (weeping lovegrass), a resilient perennial plant that undergoes apomixis and has been used as a famine food in Africa.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.