A novel transcriptional pathway that controls axillary meristem induction in grasses

控制草类腋生分生组织诱导的新型转录途径

• 批准号: BB/X002535/1
• 负责人: Jose Gutierrez-Marcos
• 金额: $ 92.68万
• 依托单位: University of Warwick
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FX002535%2F1
• 关键词: novel; transcriptional; pathway; controls; axillary

Wheat is an agronomically important food crop worldwide that has evolved through a series of human-driven breeding events over the last ca.10,000 years. Because of this, most modern wheat varieties contain limited genetic variation, commonly referred to as 'genetic bottlenecks'. A trade-off of domestication or repetitive artificial selection was the reduction of secondary shoot outgrowth (branching), resulting in reduced tiller formation in most domesticated wheats compared with their highly-branched wild relatives. Since grains are produced from the tillers, increased tillering is now becoming a sought-after desirable trait to engineer in modern cultivars as it is one way to increase grain yield per hectare. Therefore, understanding how tiller formation occurs is important to ensure greater productivity of our modern food crops. By studying goat grass, a wild wheat relative which produces large albeit variable numbers of tillers per plant, we recently discovered a new molecular pathway that controls secondary branching and thus tiller number, which we named High Tiller Number 1 (HTN1). We also obtained exciting results demonstrating that induction of this pathway is sufficient to increase tiller numbers in modern wheat and rice varieties, suggesting functional conservation of this pathway in the grasses. Based on these exciting new findings, this project aims to elucidate the HTN1 pathway primarily in wheat, for which we have ample experience and unique genomic and genetic resources in hand. Specifically, we will use computational, developmental genetic and molecular approaches to unravel the exact nature of this pathway and uncover the various components and regulatory factors involved, including how the environment (e.g. temperature, nutrient availability) affects the HTN1 pathway.We anticipate that this work will not only help us understand how tiller formation is achieved in wheat but will also provide essential know-how to protect and enhance yield in cereal crops.

小麦是世界上一种重要的农业粮食作物，在过去的10,000年里，通过一系列人类驱动的育种事件而进化而来。正因为如此，大多数现代小麦品种都含有有限的遗传变异，通常被称为“遗传瓶颈”。驯化或重复人工选择的一种权衡是次生枝条生长(分枝)的减少，导致与其高度分枝的野生近亲相比，大多数驯化小麦的分蘖形成减少。由于谷物是由分蘖产生的，因此增加分蘖现在正成为现代品种工程人员追求的理想性状，因为这是提高每公顷粮食产量的一种方式。因此，了解分蘖是如何发生的，对于确保我们现代粮食作物的更高生产力是重要的。通过对山羊草的研究，我们最近发现了一种新的分子途径，它控制着二次分枝从而控制分蘖数，我们将其命名为高分蘖数1(HTN1)。我们还获得了令人兴奋的结果，证明了这一途径的诱导足以增加现代小麦和水稻品种的分蘖数量，表明这一途径在牧草中具有保守的功能。基于这些令人兴奋的新发现，该项目旨在阐明HTN1途径主要在小麦中，我们在这方面有丰富的经验和独特的基因组和遗传资源。具体地说，我们将使用计算、发育遗传学和分子方法来揭示这一途径的确切性质，并揭示涉及的各种成分和调控因素，包括环境(例如温度、养分的可获得性)如何影响HTN1途径。我们预计这项工作不仅将帮助我们了解小麦如何实现分蘖形成，还将提供保护和提高谷类作物产量的基本知识。