EAGER: Rapid domestication of new grass crops

世界上大多数主要的谷类作物都是在近一万年前被驯化的，从那以后发展起来的很少。为了应对不断增长的人口和日益频繁和极端的气候事件，需要新的、有弹性的、高产的谷物。虽然有可能鉴定出新的适应性性状，并将其培育到已有的作物中，但这通常需要10年以上的时间，并且高度依赖于改良技术的可用性。作为使我们当前的主要作物适应未来环境的一种替代方法，驯化、改进和开发已经对剧烈环境变化具有抗性的未充分利用的谷物的育种技术可能更有益，例如苔麸（Eragrostis tef）和苔麸家族的其他成员。苔麸是唯一已知的能够承受高温、干旱、干旱和洪水的作物。尽管每天有数以百万计的东非人食用苔麸，但这种植物并没有经过广泛的繁殖；即使是适度的基因改良也会显著提高产量。为了迅速改良和（或）驯化稻科成员，将采用新技术将已证明在驯化其他谷物中起重要作用的基因引入苔麸版本。因此，这种方法将模仿自然产生的有益农艺性状，这些性状是几千年前古代农民在其他谷类作物中选择的。从这项研究中获得的信息将被应用于驯化哭爱草（Eragrostis curvula），这是一种可食用的多年生苔草亲戚，在没有受精的情况下具有非凡的种子生产能力。苔麸是唯一已知的C4作物，能够承受高温和干旱和洪水。然而，苔麸具有一些不利的农艺性状，包括高度不确定的小穗、小种子、广泛分蘖和易倒伏的细茎，在苔麸作为一种重要的替代作物被全球采用之前，需要对这些性状进行改造。这些问题将通过CAS9缺失酶/脱氨酶融合来解决，将snp引入几个已知驯化/产量基因的负调控元件中。该项目将通过创造模仿古代农民选择的农艺性状的显性、有利表型来启动驯化过程。作为对这种加速驯化过程的方法的测试，在苔麸中发现的成功的引导rna将被用于驯化Eragrostis curvula（哀婉的爱草），这是一种有弹性的多年生植物，经历无融合，在非洲被用作饥荒的食物。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Most of the major cereal crops in the world were domesticated nearly ten thousand years ago and very few have been developed since then. To cope with a burgeoning population and increasingly frequent and extreme climate events, new, resilient, high-yielding grains are needed. While it is possible to identify new, adaptive traits and breed them into pre-existing crops, this often takes over a decade and is highly dependent on the availability of improvement techniques. As an alternative to preparing our current staple crops for future environmental resilience, it may be more beneficial to domesticate, improve, and develop breeding techniques for underutilized grains that are already resistant to drastic environmental change, such as teff (Eragrostis tef) and other members of the Eragrostis family. Teff is the only known crop plant that is able to withstand high temperatures, arid conditions, and both drought and flooding. Despite the fact that millions of Eastern Africans consume teff every day, the plant has not undergone extensive breeding; even modest genetic improvements will increase yield dramatically. To improve and/or domesticate members of the Eragrostis family rapidly, new techniques will be employed to introduce changes into teff versions of genes that have been shown to be important in the domestication of other cereals. This approach would thus mimic the beneficial agronomic traits that arose naturally and were selected for in other cereal crops by ancient farmers thousands of years ago. The information gained from this study will then be applied to domesticate weeping lovegrass (Eragrostis curvula), an edible, perennial teff relative that has the remarkable ability to produce seeds in the absence of fertilization. Teff is the only known, C4 crop able to withstand high temperatures and both drought and flooding. However, teff has several negative agronomic traits, including highly indeterminate spikelets, small seeds, extensive tillering, and thin stems susceptible to lodging, traits that need to be modified before teff can be adopted globally as a serious alternative crop. These issues will be addressed using CAS9 nickase/deaminase fusions to introduce SNPs into the negative regulatory elements of several known domestication/yield genes. This project will jump-start the domestication process by creating dominant, advantageous phenotypes mimicking the agronomic traits selected for by ancient farmers. As a test of this approach to speeding the domestication process, successful guide RNAs identified in teff will then be used to attempt to domesticate Eragrostis curvula (weeping lovegrass), a resilient perennial plant that undergoes apomixis and has been used as a famine food in Africa.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.