Biotech Updates

AgriLife Research Scientists Identifies Wheat Streak Resistance Gene

August 27, 2010

Texas AgriLife Research scientists headed by Dr. Huangjun Lu discovered a wheat streak mosaic virus-resistance gene. They crossed the Colorado wheat line with TAM111 and found that the wheat streak mosaic virus resistance was due to a single dominant gene from the Colorado germplasm line. After conducting molecular mapping they were able to form markers to track the gene for wheat breeding programs.

Prior to this research, Wsm1 from wheat grass was the only gene that was identified with resistance to wheat streak mosaic virus, and the newly identified gene from bread wheat was labeled as Wsm2.

"A lot of programs will use this information to accelerate their breeding and increase the levels of resistance in new cultivars," said Dr. Jackie Rudd, wheat breeder and member of Dr. Lu's research team.

Read the complete article at http://agnews.tamu.edu/showstory.php?id=2094.