Bread may be the simple "staff of life" but the wheat used to make it is anything but simple from a genetic standpoint, say researchers working to unlock its complex genome.
While many scientists have expressed doubt that the complicated genetics structure of bread wheat could ever be completely understood, a research team comprised of scientists, growers and breeders says it's more than halfway to mapping its genome and expects to know its entire sequence eventually.
Knowledge of the entire genetic sequence would allow for targeting of particular genes in an effort to create wheat varieties that would be more nutritious, have higher crop yields, be more resistant to pests and able to adapt to climate change, the researchers of the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium say.
While mapping half a genome might not seem impressive, it's a far cry from the 5 percent of the total genetic information scientists had at their disposal before the current effort, consortium Executive Director Kellye Eversole says.
The sequencing process is akin to filling in the gaps in a partially completed map of a country, she says.
"It's not very well ordered," she says. "You might know there's a Route 1, and that it's in Virginia, but you don't know exactly where it is. But it's a guide, and it's accelerating us towards that complete map."
In a separate study reported this week, researchers reported success in determining an almost full sequence from one chromosome of the genome.
The 94 percent of the chromosome information discovered is proof the entire genome will eventually be mapped, Eversole says.
"It's like they took the state of Maryland and positioned all of its roads and even the houses."
The complexity of the wheat genome is the outcome of millennia of cross-breeding wheat has undergone, resulting in a combination of three genomes combined, each of which possesses almost twice the number of genes -- as many as 124,000 -- as are in the human genome, the researchers point out.
For much of the world's population, wheat is the major component of their diet, and is planted on more global land, in excess of 600 million acres, than any other agricultural crop.
"It's one of the most well-adapted plants on the planet," says Jane Rogers, who participated in the Human Genome Project and is now co-director of the wheat genome project. "It grows in the greatest variety of soil types and climates and has the ability to respond to different pests and diseases."
