Combining field phenotyping and next generation genetics to uncover markers, genes and biology underlying drought tolerance in wheat.

粮食安全被国际公认为是21世纪世纪的主要全球挑战之一。据预测，到2050年，世界粮食产量必须增加50%才能满足需求。这是对全球气候变化和资源限制的压力。迎接这一挑战将需要制定创新战略，以利用我们在后基因组时代前所未有的现代生物科学知识。开发小麦新品种将是实现2050年目标的基础。 对于小麦种植者来说，国际上，特别是在印度，一个关键问题是干旱。干旱意味着农场不能总是保证丰收，对小农的生计和家庭粮食安全产生重大影响。低降雨量也减少了可耕种的土地面积。在上个世纪，通过培育干旱和干旱敏感生长阶段不重合的作物来提高耐旱性。然而，培育能够在干旱条件下保持稳定产量的新品种的潜力巨大。在与布里斯托大学和约翰英尼斯中心（诺维奇）的合作下，利物浦大学的工作已经产生了小麦基因组的序列数据。利用这些信息，我们开发了新的方法来快速发现小麦的遗传变异。通过将对遗传变异的理解与对干旱条件下性能的仔细研究相结合，将遗传变异与提高耐旱性联系起来成为可能。利用这些遗传信息，可以建立“分子标记”工具，用于快速选择耐旱品系。也可以将不同性状的多个标记叠加起来。作为来自英国和印度的跨学科研究科学家的联盟，我们计划使用这种方法来识别与小麦耐旱性相关的分子标记，并为加速育种计划奠定基础，将耐旱性纳入印度小麦品种。我们将使用的方法将为如何将最先进的技术应用于重要的粮食安全问题提供蓝图。我们生成的大部分输出可以用于识别其他性状的标记。它还将导致印度和英国训练有素的研究人员能够应用这些新方法。通过推广工作，我们的目标是与其他研究人员和利益相关者合作，并将这种方法应用于小麦和不同作物的其他性状。

Food security is internationally recognised as one of the major global challenges of the 21st century. By 2050, it is predicted that world food production will have to increase by 50% to meet demand. This is against the pressures of global climate change and resource limitations. Meeting this challenge is going to require the development of innovative strategies to make use of our unprecedented knowledge of modern bioscience in the post genomic era. Developing new varieties of wheat will be fundamental to meeting the 2050 goal. For wheat growers Internationally and specifically in India one of the key issues is drought. Drought means farms cannot always guarantee a good harvest with major implications for the livelihoods and household food security of small-holder farmers. Low rainfall also reduces the land area that can be farmed. Throughout the last century improvements in drought tolerance have come through breeding crops that grow in such a way that drought and drought sensitive stages of growth do not coincide. There is however, huge potential to breed new varieties capable of maintaining stable yields in drought conditions. In collaboration with the University of Bristol and the John Innes Centre (Norwich), work at the University of Liverpool has generated sequence data for the wheat genome. Using this information we have developed new methods to rapidly uncover the genetic variation in wheat. By combining an understanding of genetic variation with a careful study of performance under drought conditions it becomes possible to associate genetic variation with improved drought tolerance. Using this genetic information "molecular marker" tools cab be built, that can be used to rapidly select for lines that are drought tolerant. It is also possible to stack up multiple markers for different traits. As a consortium of interdisciplinary research scientists from the UK and India we plan to use this approach to identify molecular markers associated with drought tolerance in wheat and lay the foundations of an accelerated breeding program to incorporate drought tolerance into Indian wheat varieties. The approaches we will be using will provide a blueprint for how state-of-art technologies can be applied to important food security issues. Much of the output we generate can be used to identify markers for other traits. It will also result in highly trained researchers in India and the UK capable of applying these new approaches. Through outreach work we aim to engage with other researchers and stakeholders and apply this methodology to other traits in wheat and different crops.