MutMap Strategy for Salt-Affected Fields of Japan

To expedite breeding of rice varieties resistant to salt, a Japan-United Kingdom research collaboration was forged. The collaboration aims to address agricultural problems that beset Japan after the tsunami paddy inundation, leaving behind salty sludge in the area  The research will focus on the use of MutMap method in identifying new genes for salt stress

Utilizing elite rice cultivar, the scientists will create mutants that exhibit different traits, a manifestation of changes that occurred in the genome after mutation. Upon the identification of one mutated plant with a desired trait, this will be crossed with the original cultivar and grown in the field. The difference between the progeny of this cross and the elite cultivar can be identified through molecular analysis.

MutMap has recently been utilized in improving traits of agricultural importance in rice such as height and salt tolerance, and will be published in the journal Nature Biotechnology. Rice cultivars developed in this study will be important in the paddy fields flooded by tsunami in Japan.

The original news can be viewed at http://www.tsl.ac.uk/mutmap.html