When you eat your pasta, bread, or cake, think how much you owe to endless fields of grain. But wheat genetics are poorly understood compared to rice and other cereal crops. In the October issue of Genome Research, Eviatar Nevo and colleagues (University of Haifa) explore the genome of wild emmer wheat, a progenitor of modern cultivated wheat and a potential resource for breeding better wheat crops.
Emmer wheat originated in the Middle East, from whence it spread to Africa and gave rise to durum wheat, that is, the wheat used for pasta. Wild emmer wheat is still found in Israel where it thrives by its exceptional disease resistance and tolerance to harsh climate. Now Nevo and colleagues present a ‘map’ of the wild emmer wheat genome, locating hundreds of unique DNA sequences on 14 chromosomes. Using this map to assess the result of crossing wild emmer with domesticated durum, the researchers find some unusual genetic interactions that may boost future breeding efforts. The new map will assist such breeding efforts and also shed light on the history and evolution of wheat, golden gift of the gods.
Contact (author):
Eviatar Nevo
Institute of Evolution
University of Haifa
Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905
Israel
Nevo@research.haifa.ac.il
Genome Research