A COMMUNITY RESOURCE IN WHEAT TRANSFORMATION

大多数关注全球粮食安全的分析人士估计，到2050年，粮食产量需要翻一番才能养活95亿人。小麦是迄今为止英国和西北欧最重要的作物。在英国，小麦的平均产量为每公顷8-10吨；在接下来的40年里，后者要翻一番，就要求育种者目前每年增加74公斤/公顷，必须提高2.5到3倍。与此同时，我们的气候正在发生变化，我们需要更好地适应干旱和减少肥料投入的小麦品种，以维持负担得起的、有营养的和安全的食品的可持续供应。许多技术将有助于解决这些目标，而基因改造（GM）将不可避免地做出贡献。这要么是直接的，即开发和引进具有新性状的转基因小麦品种，要么是间接的，作为一种研究工具，以更好地了解性状基因的功能。转基因生物（GMO）在其遗传物质中添加了一个或一组新的基因。在植物的情况下，这些可以通过自然存在的土壤细菌，农杆菌引入。这种细菌将一小段含有新基因的DNA插入到植物细胞中，从单个转化的细胞中，可以再生出正常的可育植物。这一过程发生在自然环境中，在有限范围的植物中，特定的细菌基因被插入到引起疾病的植物细胞中。在过去的30年里，这项技术取得了重大进展，去除了插入植物细胞的细菌基因，并将植物物种的范围扩大到许多作物。然而，直到最近日本一家公司的研究人员取得进展，小麦的转化仍然相当困难和低效。NIAB有一个作物转化小组，主要专注于转基因小麦，现在正在使用这些新技术取得巨大成功。我们可以在小麦细胞中添加一个（或几个）新基因，这个细胞已经包含了大约15万个基因，从而再生出一个新的“微调”小麦植株。这是一个重要的工具，可以帮助我们了解基因对植物的影响，而且比传统的育种技术要精确得多。它不仅允许对基因进行功能分析以供研究，而且重要的是为商业开发培育新性状提供了一条可行的途径。迄今为止，转基因作物主要局限于具有抗除草剂或抗虫特性，但目前正在研究具有耐旱、抗病、提高产量或有益健康的新一代性状，这些性状将在实现粮食安全和未来产量增加方面发挥重要作用。其中一些基因来自其他作物物种，如果没有转基因，就不可能在小麦上进行研究。小麦转化的社区资源将使英国学术研究人员更容易、更经济地利用世界上最好的小麦转化系统。它将特别鼓励研究其他物种的植物科学家评估它们在小麦中的基因，并为进一步研究提供有价值的材料。这笔资金还将推动这项技术的发展，以便能够有效和经济地将大型或多个基因组合转移到一系列小麦品种中进行评估。

Most analysts looking at global food security estimate that food production needs to double to feed 9.5 billion people by 2050. Wheat is by far the most important crop in the UK and north western Europe. In the UK average wheat yield is 8-10 tonnes per hectare; doubling the latter over the next 40 years requires that the current annual increases made by breeders, around 74 kg/ha, have to improve 2.5- to 3-fold. Meanwhile our climate is changing and we need wheat varieties which are better adapted to drought and reduced fertilizer inputs to maintain a sustainable supply of affordable, nutritious and safe food. Many technologies will contribute to tackling these targets and it is inevitable that genetic modification (GM) will make a contribution. This will either be directly, with the development and introduction of GM wheat varieties with new traits, or indirectly, as a research tool to better understand how trait genes function.A genetically modified organism (GMO) has a new gene or set of genes added to its genetic material. In the case of plants, these can be introduced by a naturally occurring soil bacterium, Agrobacterium tumefaciens. The bacterium inserts a small piece of DNA containing the new gene into the plant cell, and from the single transformed cell, a normal fertile plant can be regenerated. This process occurs in the natural environment in a limited range of plants, with specific bacterial genes being inserted into the plant cell that cause disease. Over the last 30 years, significant advancements have been made to this technology, removing the bacterial genes which are inserted into the plant cell, and extending the range of plant species to many crops. However wheat has remained quite difficult and inefficient to transform, until recent advances were made by researchers at a company in Japan.NIAB has a Crop Transformation Team which mainly focuses on GM wheat, and is now using these new techniques with great success. We can add one (or a few) new genes into a wheat cell, which already contains an estimated 150,000 genes, and regenerate a new "fine-tuned" wheat plant. This is an important tool, which helps us understand what effect the gene has on the plant, and is much more precise than traditional breeding techniques. It allows both functional analysis of genes for research, and importantly a viable route to breeding new traits for commercial exploitation.GM crops have to date have largely been confined to traits giving resistance to herbicides or insects, but a new generation of traits which confer drought tolerance, disease resistance, yield improvements or health benefits are now being examined which will have an important role to play in achieving food security and future increases in production. Some of these genes come from other crop species and would be impossible to study in wheat without GM. The Community Resource in Wheat Transformation will make it easier and more cost effective for UK academic researchers to access the best wheat transformation system in the world. It will particularly encourage plant scientists working in other species to evaluate their genes in wheat, and provide valuable materials for further research. The funding will also allow the technology to advance so that large or multiple gene combinations can be efficiently and economically transferred to a range of wheat varieties for evaluation.