SBIR Phase I: A simple, targeted and flexible method for transferring value-added genes from wild relatives of crop plants

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响是提高农业生产。在全球产量与预计产量的差异中，约25%是由疾病和昆虫造成的，其余75%是由非生物胁迫造成的。作物的野生近缘植物含有大量的各种农艺性状的增值基因，包括生物和非生物的抗逆性，但使用现有的方法转移这些基因几乎是不可能的，因为这是耗时、技术挑战和风险的，因为不想要的性状可能会与目标性状一起转移-使其在田间无法使用。拟议的项目将开发一种新的方法，以精确和有针对性的方式从野生近亲那里转移有用的基因，而不会伴随着不受欢迎的特征。这将提高农业产量。拟议的项目将开发一种快速、有针对性和精确的方法，将增值基因从野生近亲转移到作物中，而不伴随不需要的基因(连锁拖累)。虽然作物可以很容易地与它们的野生近亲杂交，但野生近亲的染色体不会与它们的作物同源植物配对。这是由于严格的染色体配对和重组控制，这在所有作物中都存在。作物和野生近缘染色体之间缺乏染色体配对，导致携带数千个基因的整个染色体/臂的转移，其中只有一两个基因是有用的。在过去的70年里，巨大的努力已经导致了540个基因从野生近亲转移到小麦中。虽然每次转移花费了10年以上的时间，但在小麦品种中实际存在的这些基因不到10个，主要是因为连锁拖累的相关负面影响，因为几乎所有的转移都是完整的染色体、臂或大片段。拟议的项目将开发一种新的方法，在不到一年的时间内将增值基因从野生近亲转移到作物中，而不需要任何连锁拖拽。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to improve agricultural production. Of the global production differences with projected yields, about 25% results from disease and insects, and the remaining 75% is due to abiotic stresses. Wild relatives of crop plants harbor tremendous number of value-added genes for various agronomic traits including biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, but their transfer using currently available methods is practically impossible as it is time-consuming, technically challenging, and risky as undesirable traits may be transferred with the target trait - rendering it unusable in the field. The proposed project will develop a novel method to transfer useful genes from wild relatives in a precise and targeted manner, without the accompanying undesirable traits. This will improve agricultural yields. The proposed project will develop a quick, targeted, and precise method of transferring value-added genes from wild relatives into crops, without accompanying unwanted genes (linkage drag). While the crop plants can easily be crossed to their wild relatives, chromosomes of wild relatives do not pair with their crop plant counterparts. This is due to a strict chromosome pairing and recombination control that is present in all crop plants. Lack of chromosome pairing between crop and wild relative chromosomes results in the transfer of whole chromosomes/arms carrying thousands of genes of which only one or two are useful. Tremendous efforts over the last 70 years have resulted in the transfer of 540 genes from wild relatives into wheat. While each transfer effort took more than 10 years, fewer than 10 of these genes are actually present in wheat varieties, mainly because of the associated negative effects of linkage drag as almost all transfers are complete chromosomes, arms or large segments. The proposed project will develop a novel method to transfer value-added genes from wild relatives into crops in less than a year without any linkage drag.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.