Tools for modifying chromosome pairing and recombination during breeding

小麦的野生近缘种具有有用的特性，如对干旱、盐和寒冷的耐受性以及对各种疾病的抗性。为了满足在气候变化和贫瘠土壤条件下种植小麦的要求，能够通过将负责这些性状的基因转移到小麦中来利用这些性状将变得越来越重要。然而，由于小麦基因组的复杂性，通过常规育种将这种转移到小麦中以前是非常困难的。小麦有三套遗传信息，或基因组，这本质上应该使小麦遗传不稳定。稳定性是由一种基因复合体（称为Ph1）赋予的，它有效地防止了不同基因组之间的基因重组。基因组A中的基因只能与来自A的基因重组，B与B重组，等等，好消息是它使小麦遗传稳定。坏消息是，这也使得从野生物种中获得理想的基因到现代小麦品种中变得非常困难。但是现在，经过对Ph1机制的广泛研究，我们相信我们知道如何暂时关闭Ph1基因复合体，允许育种者转移有用的“野生”基因，而不会破坏该领域的遗传稳定性。它将大大增加育种者可用于改良品种的遗传物质库。

Wild relatives of wheat have useful charcteristics such as increased tolerance to drought, salt and cold as well as resistance to various diseases. To meet the requirements of growing wheat under climate change and poor soil conditions, it will become increasingly important to be able to exploit such characteristics by transferring the genes responsible for such traits to wheat. However this transfer into wheat by conventional breeding has previously been very difficult because of the complexity of the wheat genome. Wheat has three sets of genetic information, or genomes, which inherently should make wheat genetically unstable. Stability is conferred by a gene complex, known as Ph1, which effectively prevents recombination of genes across the different genomes. Genes in genome A can only recombine with genes from A, B with B, etc. The good news is that it makes wheat genetically stable. The bad news is it also makes it very hard to get desirable genes from wild species into modern wheat varieties. But now, following extensive research into the Ph1 mechanism, we believe that we know how to temporarily switch off the Ph1 gene complex allowing breeders to transfer in useful 'wild' genes, without upsetting the genetic stability in the field. It will greatly increase the pool of genetic material breeders can use to improve varieties.