New Genetic Resources for Cereal Crops

David Garvin and his colleagues at the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) developed a special population of plants of the wild grass Brachypodium distachyon which could help speed up scientists’ search for genes that could protect cereal crops from diseases. The ARS scientists developed the first recombinant inbred line (RILs) population of Brachypodium. RILs can serve as powerful tools for mapping out genes.

An RIL is formed by crossing two inbred strains followed by selfing or sibling mating to create a new line whose genome is a mosaic of the parental genome. This means that offspring of each line in the population will retain the same genetic identity in perpetuity. Scientists need to genotype a strain only once. Since all the offspring of each line will always have the same gene, they can also repeat experiments as often as they desire. Garvin noted that the ability to work with large numbers of plants with the same genetic makeup gives scientists the opportunity to obtain highly accurate information on the number of genes that control a trait.

The scientists will use the Brachypodium RIL population to identify genes that will provide resistance against the UG99 strain of the wheat rust disease.

Read the complete article at http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2008/081113.htm