Mining genetic diversity in wild barley for disease resistance

在气候变化、全球人口不断增长以及全球货物和人员流动日益增加的威胁下，农业面临的挑战从未像现在这样紧迫。大麦(Hordeum vergare subsp.)是最早的驯化作物之一，比现在早10000年出现。大麦已经并将继续受到几种植物病害的影响，包括锈病、霉病、稻瘟病、烫伤病、黑穗病等。大麦的野生祖先是普通大麦亚种。Senstaneum，分布于北非至西南部的一种植物中国。野生大麦是驯化大麦的初级基因库，可以通过育种直接获得，改良大麦。该项目旨在了解野生大麦中免疫受体的多样性，并识别可用于改良驯化大麦的基因。在该项目中将获得的技能包括生物信息学(高通量基因组学、大数据)、遗传学(双亲和联合)、现代植物育种和分子生物学。这个博士项目将由塞恩斯伯里实验室的Matthew Moscou博士监督，是与英国大麦育种领先者KWS的工业合作。Moscou小组专注于了解草的免疫力，目标是在主要谷类作物(大麦、小麦、水稻和玉米)中培育持久的抗病能力。

Under the threat of climate change, an expanding worldwide population, and increasing movement of goods and people worldwide, the challenges for agriculture have never been more pressing. Barley (Hordeum vulgare subsp. vulgare) was one of the earliest domesticated crops which occurred 10,000 years before present. Barley has and continues to be impacted by several plant disease including rust, mildew, blast, scald, smut, and others. The wild progenitor of barley is H. vulgare subsp. spontaneum, a species with a wide range from North Africa to southwest China. Wild barley is in the primary gene pool of domesticated barley; therefore, it can be directly accessed through breeding to improve barley. This project sets out to understand immune receptor diversity in wild barley and to identify genes that can be used to improve domesticated barley. Skills that will be gained during the project include bioinformatics (high-throughput genomics, big data), genetics (biparental and association), modern plant breeding, and molecular biology. This PhD project will be supervised by Dr. Matthew Moscou at The Sainsbury Laboratory and is an industrial collaboration with KWS, a leader in barley breeding in the UK. The Moscou group focuses on understanding immunity in the grasses, with the goal of engineering durable disease resistance in the major cereal crops (barley, wheat, rice, and maize).