Farming in Foreign Fields... Sequencing the bread of life

摘要

AN international research "group is making big advances in the compilation and analysis of the genome sequences of the major cereal crpp - bread wheat. This is providing important resources for future crop improvement through extending genetic diversity artd analysing key traits. Bread wheat accounts for around 20 per cent of the calories consumed by humankind. It has a very large and complex hexaploid genome of 17 gigabases. The research group has analysed the genome using a technique called 454pyrosequencing ("shotgun sequencing approach") and have compared this analysis with diploid ancestral and progenitor genomes. In a recent paper published in Nature, the authors have reported on the discovery of a significant loss of gene family members uponpolyploidisation and domestication, and expansion of gene classes that may be associated with crop productivity.