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Linkage drag constrains the roots of modern wheat
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Linkage drag constrains the roots of modern wheat

K.P. Voss-Fels, L. Qian, S. Parra-Londono, R. Uptmoor, M. Frisch, G. Keeble-Gagnère, R. Appels and R.J. Snowdon
Plant, Cell & Environment, Vol.40(5), pp.717-725
2017
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Abstract

Roots, the hidden half of crop plants, are essential for resource acquisition. However, knowledge about the genetic control of below-ground plant development in wheat, one of the most important small-grain crops in the world, is very limited. The molecular interactions connecting root and shoot development and growth, and thus modulating the plant's demand for water and nutrients along with its ability to access them, are largely unexplored. Here, we demonstrate that linkage drag in European bread wheat, driven by strong selection for a haplotype variant controlling heading date, has eliminated a specific combination of two flanking, highly conserved haplotype variants whose interaction confers increased root biomass. Reversing this inadvertent consequence of selection could recover root diversity that may prove essential for future food production in fluctuating environments. Highly conserved synteny to rice across this chromosome segment suggests that adaptive selection has shaped the diversity landscape of this locus across different, globally important cereal crops. By mining wheat gene expression data, we identified root-expressed genes within the region of interest that could help breeders to select positive variants adapted to specific target soil environments.

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#13 Climate Action
#15 Life on Land

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
International collaboration
Citation topics
3 Agriculture, Environment & Ecology
3.4 Crop Science
3.4.96 QTL
Web Of Science research areas
Plant Sciences
ESI research areas
Plant & Animal Science
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