Engineering apomixis in crops.

Apomixis is an asexual mode of reproduction through seeds where progeny are clones of the mother plants. Naturally apomictic modes of reproduction are found in hundreds of plant genera distributed across more than 30 plant families, but are absent in major crop plants. Apomixis has the potential to be a breakthrough technology by allowing the propagation through seed of any genotype, including F1 hybrids.

High-resolution mapping of the Mov-1 locus in wheat by combining radiation hybrid (RH) and recombination-based mapping approaches.

This work reports a quick method that integrates RH mapping and genetic mapping to map the dominant Mov-1 locus to a 1.1-Mb physical interval with a small number of candidate genes. Bread wheat is an important crop for global human population.

Development of Targeting Induced Local Lesions IN Genomes (TILLING) Populations in Small Grain Crops by Ethyl Methanesulfonate Mutagenesis.

Targeting Induced Local Lesions IN Genomes (TILLING) is a powerful reverse genetics tool that includes chemical mutagenesis and detection of sequence variation in target genes. TILLING is a highly valuable functional genomics tool for gene validation, especially in small grains in which transformation-based approaches hold serious limitations. Developing a robust mutagenized population is key to determining the efficiency of a TILLING-based gene validation study.

TILL-D: An TILLING Resource for Wheat Improvement.

(2n = 2x = 14, genome DD), also known as Tausch's goatgrass, is the D genome donor of bread or hexaploid wheat (2n = 2x = 42, AABBDD genome). It is a rich reservoir of useful genes for biotic and abiotic stress tolerance for wheat improvement. We developed a TILLING (Targeting Induced Local Lesions In Genomes) resource for for discovery and validation of useful genes in the D genome of wheat.