The generation of wheat/Aegilops umbellulata wild relative lines and characterisation of their traits associated with high protein content and disease

为不断增长的世界人口维持足够的粮食生产是巨大的挑战。气候变化、病虫害、粮食质量和营养都是需要应对和克服的挑战，以确保粮食安全。小麦为全球超过25亿人提供了食物（wheat.org），提供了小麦种植区20-50%的每日卡路里摄入量（Ceoloni等人，2017）和20%的蛋白质消耗量，但由于驯化过程中的遗传选择压力，天然遗传变异不足（Fu和索默斯，2009）。有限的遗传变异将使其在未来难以提高生物和非生物胁迫耐受性，并提高质量性状，如面包生产的蛋白质水平。小麦的生物强化也越来越重要，营养缺乏导致的“隐性饥饿”影响着大约20亿人（世界卫生组织，2006年）。小麦的野生近缘种没有受到这种遗传瓶颈的影响，因此它们仍然传递着小麦所需的许多特性。这些野生近缘种是未开发的遗传变异的主要来源，这些遗传变异可以通过将它们杂交（渐渗）在一起以引入来自野生近缘种的等位基因而转移到小麦中。伞形山羊草是这些野生近缘种之一。通过基因组UU，已知这种野生亲缘植物传递了性状的多样性，例如适合面包制作的高蛋白质含量（Liu et al. 2003），并提高了面包小麦的加工和营养品质（Kumar et al. 2019）。伞形山慈菇还显示含有较高的铁和锌水平（Neelam等人，2012），并且对于叶锈病和茎锈病抗性，其可导致全世界小麦产量的毁灭性下降（60-100%）（Park 2007），（Bansal等人，2020）。该项目将从Ae转移遗传变异。通过小麦与Ae.伞形花序，然后回交几代，直到每个线主要是小麦，但含有一小段遗传物质从Ae。伞形花序。目的是生产一套小麦/Ae。umbellulata株系，每株植物含有不同的小纯合片段覆盖7条染色体的Ae。将使用细胞遗传学技术和KASP标记基因分型来验证渗入，以找到转移材料的位置和大小（Grewal等人，2020）。然后可以将遗传稳定的纯合系混合并测试期望的性状。特别是，堪萨斯州立大学的John Fellers教授将对品系进行抗锈病筛选（Fellers et al 2020），并有机会访问堪萨斯进行分析。根据项目的进展情况，其他特征也可能在诺丁汉大学进行测试，例如，农艺效益、光合特性、高籽粒蛋白质含量或矿物质（Fe、Zn）含量。这可能会为小麦育种者带来急需的遗传多样性，并有助于解决粮食安全的挑战。新的出版物可以包括渐渗系的产生及其使用GISH和KASP标记的表征，以及系的性状分析。

The challenges of maintaining sufficient food production for a growing world population is immense. Climate change, pests and diseases, food quality and nutrition are all challenges that need to be met and overcome to ensure food security. Wheat, which feeds over 2.5 billion people world-wide (wheat.org) providing 20-50% of daily calorie intake (Ceoloni et al. 2017) and 20% of protein consumption in wheat growing areas, has insufficient natural genetic variation which stemmed from a genetic selection pressure during domestication (Fu and Somers 2009). The limited genetic variation will make it difficult in the future to increase biotic and abiotic stress tolerances and to improve quality traits such as protein levels for bread production. The biofortification of wheat is also of increasing importance, with 'hidden hunger' affecting approximately two billion people through nutrient deficiency (world health organisation 2006). Wheat wild relatives were not subjected to this genetic bottle neck, so they still convey many of the traits that wheat requires. These wild relatives are a major source of untapped genetic variation which can be transferred into wheat by crossing (introgressing) them together to introduce alleles from the wild relative.Aegilops umbellulata is one of these wild relatives. With the genome UU, this wild relative is known to convey diversity for traits such as high protein content suitable for bread making (Liu et al. 2003) and to increase processing and nutritional qualities of bread wheat (Kumar et al. 2019). Ae.umbellulata has also been shown to contain higher iron and zinc levels (Neelam et al. 2012) and, for leaf and stem rust resistances, which can cause a devastating decrease in wheat yields (60-100%) worldwide ((Park 2007), (Bansal et al. 2020). This project will transfer genetic variation from Ae. umbellulata into wheat by crossing wheat with Ae. umbellulata and then backcrossing for several generations until each line is mostly wheat but contains a small segment of genetic material from Ae. umbellulata. The aim is to produce a set of wheat/Ae. umbellulata lines, each plant containing a different small homozygous segment covering the 7 chromosomes of Ae. umbellulata, suitable to test for traits of interest.The introgressions will be validated using cytogenetic techniques and KASP marker genotyping to find the position and size of the transferred material (Grewal et al. 2020). The genetically stable homozygous lines can then be bulked and tested for desirable traits. In particular, the lines will be screened for rust resistances (Fellers et al 2020), by Professor John Fellers at Kansas State University with the opportunity to visit Kansas for analysis. Depending on the progression of the project, other traits may also be tested at Nottingham University, e.g., agronomy benefits, photosynthetic traits, high grain protein content or mineral (Fe, Zn) content. This could potentially produce much needed genetic diversity for wheat breeders and help solve the challenges of food security. Novel publications could include the generation of the introgression lines and their characterisation using GISH and KASP markers, and trait analysis of the lines.