Scientists Unlock Wheat's Genetic Secrets with New Blueprint

Scientists have created the first ever draft of a genetic blueprint of bread wheat, also known as common wheat. The findings reveal a bit more about the plant that's grown on more than 531 million acres around the world and produces nearly 700 million tons of food each year.

The new genetic blueprint is an invaluable tool for plant science researchers and plant breeders. It could potentially help inspire future research into how to make the plant more productive or more resistant to environmental conditions.

"For the first time, they have at their disposal a set of tools enabling them to rapidly locate specific genes on individual wheat chromosomes throughout the genomes," said Eduard Akhunov, associate professor of plant pathology and one of the researchers, in a news release. "This resource is invaluable for identifying those genes that control complex traits, such as yield, grain quality, disease, pest resistance and abiotic stress tolerance. They will be able to produce a new generation of wheat varieties with higher yields and improved sustainability to meet the demands of a growing world population in a changing environment."

Although this is only a draft, the sequence does provide new insight into the plant's structure, organization, evolution and genetic complexity. This is a huge advancement for the wheat genetics and breeding community.

"The wheat genome sequence provides a foundation for studying genetic variation and understanding how changes in the genetic code can impact important agronomic traits," said Akhunov. "In our lab we used this sequence to create a catalog of single base changes in DNA sequence of a worldwide sample of wheat lines to get insights into the evolution and origin of wheat genetic diversity."

Since wheat is a staple food source for a large part of the world, understanding more about the genetics of the plant is crucial for future breeding purposes. Currently, scientists are working on sequencing the full wheat genome, which could shed even more light on this important plant.

The findings are published in the journal Science.