researcher from KeyGene and Wageningen University & Research ( WUR ) , in collaboration with workfellow from Japan and New Zealand , have key a gene that will make it possible to produce seeds from crops that are genetically very to the female parent industrial plant and that do not need pollenation .
This phenomenon , called apomixis , enable plants with a worthy combining of traits to acquire many offspring with the same desirable compounding of cistron as the mother plant .
Together with researchers from the Japanese breeding company Takii and New Zealand ’s Plant & Food Research and Lincoln University , the KeyGene and WUR researchers explain in Nature Genetics magazine how the cistron works and the way it influence the work of the ' father of genetics ’ Gregor Mendel .
The breakthrough is expected to lead to major introduction in plant fosterage over the amount yr .
The gene found has been given the name PAR , shortened from parthenogenesis , the process whereby egg cells spring up into plant embryos without dressing of the egg cell . The discovery marks a classical breakthrough and crowns the research squad ’s work that started at KeyGene over 15 years ago .
Innovation in agricultureApomixis is seen as the holy grail of husbandry . Because agamogenetic plants create ‘ clonal ’ seed from the mother works , the operation allows unambiguously superior combinations of a works ’s trait to be bewitch in one brutal swoop . Apomixis can therefore speed up the nurture of innovative crops , make seed production less dear and bring the advantages of intercrossed fostering to a lot more of the world ’s crop species .
Carla Oplaat , researcher at WUR , in lab
While the grandness of apomixis for Department of Agriculture has long been recognise , it has yet to be successfully introduced in plant breeding practice . In 2018 a factor was unwrap that can be used for parthenogenesis in Elmer Rice , but scientist now make love that that factor does not , unfortunately , work outside the grasses .
Fifteen years of researchA squad of scientist from enquiry company KeyGene in the Netherlands started to unravel the genetics behind apomixis in the early-2000s . From the start , the musical theme was that get hold the genes could mean a find for the exercise of apomixis in crops . In 2016 , the KeyGene squad became the first to discover the DIP cistron , the cistron for diplospory , which is one of the two steps imply in apomixis .
Dandelions in WUR greenhouse
The DIP cistron ensures that the number of chromosomes is not halved during the organisation of egg cellular phone . The other essential dance step in apomixis is that this egg cell with this normal number of chromosomes starts dividing without fertilization and maturate into an embryo . This appendage is call parthenogenesis . The KeyGene investigator , therefore , started looking for the PAR gene and call for the Biosystematics group of Wageningen University & Research in this research .
DandelionThe team used the blowball in their research , one of around 400 tempestuous plant species known to regurgitate by apomixis . The PAR gene ensures that ball cells develop into a works embryo without fertilization taking place . The KeyGene investigator proved that the PAR factor is active in the pollen .
Blowhead parthenogenetic dandelion , photograph by WUR
Egg prison cell fooledAt the Biosystematics mathematical group of Wageningen University & Research , it was discovered that the PAR gene is normally static in egg cells . The PAR gene unremarkably only becomes active in the egg mobile phone after fertilization , it then divides to create a works fertilized egg . In the egg cells of dandelion plant that form seeds via apomixis , the PAR cistron proved to be switched ‘ on ’ prior to fertilization . In other Scripture , these egg cells ‘ think ’ they are fertilized and start dividing without impregnation having taken place .
HawkweedIn New Zealand , parthenogeny genes are also being studied by researchers at Lincoln University and at Plant & Food Research . Their research focuses on hawkweed , a plant genus that Gregor Mendel studied extensively . In the mid-1800s , Mendel noted that plant characters were inherit differently in peas and hawkweed but he was not able-bodied to explain why . We now have a go at it that this is because peas reproduce sexually while hawkweeds reproduce by apomixis .
Hawkweeds and blowball belong to the same plant family unit so the New Zealand investigator compare the PAR gene with the cistron of hawkweed and pick up something that the KeyGene researchers had also honour in blowball : while all flora stop PAR genes , the plants with apomixis had an extra patch of DNA in the gene . This supernumerary firearm of desoxyribonucleic acid appeared to be in almost the same place in the hawkweed as in dandelion , even though the plants are believed to have separated from a vulgar ancestor more than 13 million year ago .
Egg cell in sexually reproducing dandelion , Photo by WUR .
Jumping genesA significant follow - up doubt is whether the PAR factor from dandelion and the new knowledge about Further psychoanalysis revealed that the extra piece of DNA was a so - called transposon : a piece of desoxyribonucleic acid that can ‘ jump off ’ within the flora DNA . In hawkweed and in blowball the transposon is positioned in the promotor , the region of the PAR gene that regulates the factor ’s activity . The researchers now suppose that these jumping cistron ended up in the promotor of the PAR gene severally in both plant species and that this is a case of parallel phylogenesis .
Now to cropsA significant follow - up question is whether the PAR gene from dandelion and the young knowledge about the genetic science behind apomixis can be used to engender crops with genetically superior seeds .
Although most plant do not use apomixis , most do have factor that are strikingly similar to the PAR gene as well as the other found DIP gene of blowball . This suggests that apomixis naturally acts as a modification of normal sexual procreation and , therefore , potentially also that apomixis could be widely applicable for innovative agriculture by using mod tools like cistron editing .
KeyGene researchers have started this study already . In late inquiry , together with scientist of Takii Seed , they succeeded in showing that the PAR gene can stimulate parthenogeny in both dinero and helianthus , bringing the prospect of apomixis in crop yet another stone’s throw forward .
Wageningen University & Researchwww.wur.nl
Link to the newspaper in Nature Genetics : https://www.nature.com / articles / s41588 - 021 - 00984 - y
