Tools for modifying chromosome pairing and recombination during breeding

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Wild relatives of wheat have useful charcteristics such as increased tolerance to drought, salt and cold as well as resistance to various diseases. To meet the requirements of growing wheat under climate change and poor soil conditions, it will become increasingly important to be able to exploit such characteristics by transferring the genes responsible for such traits to wheat. However this transfer into wheat by conventional breeding has previously been very difficult because of the complexity of the wheat genome. Wheat has three sets of genetic information, or genomes, which inherently should make wheat genetically unstable. Stability is conferred by a gene complex, known as Ph1, which effectively prevents recombination of genes across the different genomes. Genes in genome A can only recombine with genes from A, B with B, etc. The good news is that it makes wheat genetically stable. The bad news is it also makes it very hard to get desirable genes from wild species into modern wheat varieties. But now, following extensive research into the Ph1 mechanism, we believe that we know how to temporarily switch off the Ph1 gene complex allowing breeders to transfer in useful 'wild' genes, without upsetting the genetic stability in the field. It will greatly increase the pool of genetic material breeders can use to improve varieties.

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