Do shared genetic pathways control drought tolerance and senescence in wheat?

到2050年，小麦等主要农作物的产量需要增加50%，才能满足全球对粮食的需求。然而，缺水是作物生产的一个主要限制因素，并因气候变化对全球小麦生产构成越来越大的风险。近年来，干旱影响了英国的小麦产量，导致2020年S的收成是30年来最少的。在这个项目中，将使用跨学科方法来确定新的基因目标，以提高小麦的耐旱性和确保未来的小麦产量。研究小组最近发现了几种可以延缓小麦衰老(衰老)的转录因子，他们假设这些转录因子可以提供一条提高抗旱性的途径，就像在其他植物物种中所显示的那样。结合遗传变异研究、基因敲除突变体和过表达品系，将被用来询问这些转录因子是否可以用于提高抗旱性。

The production of staple crops such as wheat need to be increased by 50 % by 2050 to meet the global demand for food. However, water scarcity represents a major limiting factor for crop production and poses an increasing risk to global wheat production due to climate change. In recent years drought has affected wheat yields in the UK, contributing to 2020's harvest being the smallest for three decades. In this project interdisciplinary approaches will be used to identify new gene targets to improve drought tolerance and secure wheat yields for the future. The Research Group has recently discovered several transcription factors which delay senescence (ageing) in wheat, which they hypothesise could provide a route to improve drought tolerance, as has been shown in other plant species. A combination of genetic variation studies, knock-out mutants and overexpression lines will be used to ask whether these transcription factors can be used to improve drought tolerance.