Joint NSF/ERA-CAPS: INTREPID - INvestigating TRiticeae EPIgenomes for Domestication

PI：W. Richard McCombie（冷泉港实验室）CoPI：Robert Martienssen（冷泉港实验室）ERA-CAPS合作者：Anthony Hall（利物浦大学，利物浦，英国），Klaus Mayer（慕尼黑亥姆霍兹中心，慕尼黑，德国）和Michael Bevan（约翰英尼斯中心，诺维奇，英国）小麦是世界上主要的粮食作物之一，特别是在美国。该项目将采取全面的方法来定义面包小麦的表观基因组，表观遗传修饰的功能后果，基因组如何在新形成的杂交种中重塑，稳定和遗传，以及环境如何影响表观遗传修饰的模式。这些都是生物学中的基本重要问题，对于理解小麦杂种的性状变异是必要的。 预计该项目将对三个具体主题产生广泛影响。第一个问题涉及粮食安全。面对城市化和世界人口增长等因素，粮食安全是一个日益严峻的挑战。影响面包小麦产量的一个重要因素是高产杂交小麦的表观遗传调控。更好地理解这一过程将有助于其他人理解杂交品系的创造和稳定所涉及的基本过程，从而提高杂交品系的生产效率，并有助于粮食安全。这项工作将产生重大影响的第二个广泛领域是气候变化领域。了解气候变化如何影响重要作物基因组的表观遗传调控，可能会对了解农业产量将如何受到挑战以及如何进行调整以应对气候变化产生广泛影响。最后，该项目将在加强科学教育和理解方面产生广泛影响。迅速发展的科学和技术在向公众传达对该技术及其背后科学的一般理解方面提出了挑战。该项目将作为一个平台，使用不同的和新的教育工具更好地向公众解释科学。除了对学生进行培训外，该项目还将为与美国-欧盟联盟有关的研究生提供夏季国际交流研究培训。小麦是一种多倍体，最近由山羊草（Aegilops tauschii，DD）与野生四倍体二粒小麦（Triticum dicoccoides，AABB）杂交形成六倍体面包小麦（Triticum aestivum AABBDD）。这种杂交过程对于现代小麦品种获得高产至关重要。然而，关于这一过程，特别是表观遗传学如何调节哪一个亲本系在农业上重要的杂交种中表达方面，还有很多不了解。该项目将产生关于面包小麦基因组的表观遗传调控及其在杂交种内组分基因组稳定中的作用的信息。一个目的是了解表观遗传变异如何改变杂交小麦中的基因表达，通过确定表观遗传性状或表观遗传标记如何在杂交过程中形成新的小麦品系，以及如何在稳定的小麦杂交种中保持这些性状以获得高农业产量。这是期望，该项目将提供一个更好地了解与表观遗传学，参与高产杂交小麦品系的创建和稳定的分子机制。所产生的所有数据将在联合体内自由和持续地共享。具体而言，所有数据集都将通过iPlant Collaborative和欧洲生物信息学研究所（EBI）以及包括GenBank在内的公开数据库访问。

PI: W. Richard McCombie (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)CoPI: Robert Martienssen (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) ERA-CAPS Collaborators: Anthony Hall (University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom), Klaus Mayer (Helmholtz-Zentrum Muenchen, Munich, Germany), and Michael Bevan (John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom)Wheat is one of the major food crops in the world and specifically in the United States. This project will take a comprehensive approach to define the epigenome of bread wheat, the functional consequences of epigenetic modifications, how the genome is re-shaped, stabilized and inherited in newly formed hybrids, and how the environment may influence patterns of epigenetic modification. These are fundamentally important questions in biology and are necessary for understanding trait variation in wheat hybrids. It is anticipated that this project will have broad impacts across three specific themes. The first of these relates to food security. Food security is an ever-increasing challenge in the face of factors such as urbanization and world population growth. One factor that significantly affects agricultural yields of bread wheat is the epigenetic regulation of high-yielding hybrid lines. A better understanding of this process will help others understand the basic processes involved in the creation and stabilization of hybrid lines and thus improve the efficiency at which they can be derived and contribute to food security. The second broad area where the work will have significant impacts is in the area of climate change. Understanding how changing climate affects epigenetic regulation of an important crop genome will likely have broad implications for the understanding of how agricultural yields will be challenged and can be modified to respond to changing climate. Lastly the project will have broad impact in the area of enhancing scientific education and understanding. Rapidly advancing science and technology presents a challenge in conveying a general understanding of that technology and the science behind it to the general public. This project will be used as a platform to better explain science to the general public using different and new educational tools. In addition to the training of students, the project will provide summer international exchange research training for graduate students associated with the US-EU consortium.Wheat is a polyploid arising from recent hybridization of goat grass (Aegilops tauschii, DD) with wild tetraploid emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides, AABB) to form hexaploid bread wheat (Triticum aestivum AABBDD). This process of hybridization is critical to achieving the high yields produced by modern wheat varieties. However, much is not understood about this process particularly in terms of how epigenetics regulates which parental line is expressed within the agriculturally significant hybrids. This project will generate information about the epigenetic regulation of the bread wheat genome and its role in the stabilization of the component genomes within the hybrids. One aim is to understand how epigenetic variation alters gene expression in hybrid wheat by identifying how epigenetic traits or epigenetic marks are set during hybridization in the formation of new wheat strains and how these are maintained in stable wheat hybrids to allow for high agricultural yields. It is the expectation that this project will provide a much better understanding of the molecular mechanisms related to epigenetics that are involved in the creation and stabilization of high-yielding hybrid wheat strains. All data produced will be freely and continuously shared within the consortium. Specifically, all datasets will be accessible through the iPlant Collaborative and European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) as well as through publicly available data repositories including GenBank.