Impact of gene on crop development could boost cereal yields
The productivity of major crops such as barley could get a boost in the future thanks to discoveries in the inner workings of genes and how they influence crop development, a new study from the James Hutton Institute and the University of Dundee has shown.
Scientists from both institutions have carried out the first study to demonstrate that a gene encoding a protein called HvAPETLA2 (HvAP2) controls how closely grains are packed on the top of the barley stem or spike, an important agronomic trait called spike density.
Dr Kelly Houston, a molecular geneticist at the James Hutton Institute and co-author of the study, led the effort to pinpoint HvAP2 as a key gene influencing spike density.
The effort to identify HvAP2 as regulating spike density was aided by genomic resources which scientists at the James Hutton Institute have been instrumental in developing, such as the barley genome assembly published last year in Nature.
Co-author Sarah McKim, from the Division of Plant Sciences at the University of Dundee, found that these mutations prevented miRNAs from blocking HvAP2 function.
Conducting a fine-scale microscopic analysis of growing spikes in normal and extreme dense spike barleys, Dr McKim found that loss of miRNA-regulation of HvAP2 caused spike growth to pause early in development and grow more slowly afterwards, leading to denser spikes.
“This study reveals how control of specific phases of developmental timing by miRNAs influences important agronomic traits in some of the world’s most economically, sociologically and ecologically relevant crops,” she commented.
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