News

Annotation:  A new genetic study of pear accessions brings fresh insights into the diversity, identity, and relationships within Pyrus germplasm. By analyzing 445 accessions using advanced genotyping approaches, researchers were able to distinguish species, identify clones, reveal parent–offspring relationships, and detect misclassified material. The study introduces robust SSR markers and effective SNP-based tools that support precise . . .

Annotation:  Wild crop relatives are valuable genetic resources for improving stress adaptation in cultivated species. Their usage is expanding with the availability of reference genomes. We assembled a chromosome-scale, annotated reference genome of Hordeum erectifolium, a wild relative of barley, adapted to drought and saline soils, making it an excellent species for stress-adaptation research. Comparative morphological and genomic analyses . . .

Climate change is making droughts more frequent and severe, threatening food and energy security worldwide. Collaborative initiatives of breeders and researchers aims to develop new grass varieties that can survive these harsh conditions, and one promising approach combines genes from two related grass species. We tested a new cultivar called "AberRoot" that blends traits from perennial ryegrass and a drought-tolerant fescue, finding that plants . . .

Annotation:  Cultivated Triticeae species, such as barley, can be used to improve bread wheat. The previously developed Asakaze–Manas addition lines, despite low fertility and unstable inheritance, serve as bridge materials for introducing barley chromatin into wheat. Using centric breakage–fusion and the gametocidal effect of Aegilops cylindrica chromosome 2C, stable translocation genotypes were developed from 4H and 6H addition lines . . .

Annotation:  Gene transcription is controlled by an interplay of transcription factors, non-coding RNA and cis-regulatory elements (CREs), such as promoters, enhancers and silencers. Interest in these elements is growing in crops as they were found to be associated with variation in agronomically important traits. In order to identify and characterize CREs in the barley genome, we performed genome-wide profiling of several epigenetic features, which . . .

Annotation:  This study explores a top-crossing strategy to broaden the genetic base of wheat using Aegilops comosa. Detailed cytogenetic analyses revealed selective elimination and rearrangement of alien and wheat chromosomes. Frequent homoeologous recombinations enabled the development of diverse introgression, substitution, and translocation lines. Several alien chromosomes showed good compensation for missing wheat chromosomes without yield . . .

Annotation:  Climate change intensifies stresses such as drought and heat, threatening crop yields, while elevated CO₂ can improve photosynthesis and water-use efficiency (WUE). We tested drought (D), elevated temperature (eT) and elevated CO₂ (eC) alone, in all pairwise combinations and together (eC+eT+D). The eT+D combination caused the largest declines in growth and yield, whereas eC consistently increased WUE and partially mitigated stress . . .

Annotation:  Plants rely on finely tuned coordination among nuclear, mitochondrial, and chloroplast genomes to assemble essential multisubunit cytonuclear complexes. Genome merging and duplication can disrupt this co-evolution and the stoichiometric balances. We conducted a multidisciplinary analysis on the quantification and qualification of organelles, copy number of organelle DNAs, and gene expression changes associated with auto- and . . .

Annotation: The genome of a dioecious plant Silene latifolia comprises a giant ~550-megabase Y chromosome, which has remained unsequenced so far. Using a long- and short-read hybrid approach, a high-quality male genome was obtained. Comparative analysis of the sex chromosomes with their homologs in outgroups revealed that the Y is highly rearranged and degenerated. Recombination suppression between X and Y triggered a massive accumulation of repeats . . .

Annotation: A pan-transcriptome describes the transcriptional and post-transcriptional consequences of genome diversity from multiple individuals within a species. In a joint effort of an international consortium consisting of 19 organisations from around the world, barley pan-transcriptome was developed from 20 inbred genotypes representing domesticated barley diversity. To overcome single reference bias in transcript quantification, we constructed . . .

Annotation: The genomes of many plants, animals, and fungi frequently comprise dispensable B chromosomes that rely upon various chromosomal drive mechanisms to counteract the tendency of non-essential genetic elements to be purged over time. The B chromosome of rye undergoes targeted nondisjunction during first pollen mitosis, favouring segregation into the generative nucleus, thus increasing their numbers over generations. Using a newly-assembled . . .

Annotation:  Analysis of exomes from 434 bread wheat accessions (the WHEALBI collection) identified almost 25 thousand putative introgressed segments of at least 2 Mb. The most frequent donor of the introgressions was Triticum timopheevii or its close relatives. Besides, we identified multiple events where distal chromosomal segments of one subgenome were duplicated in the genome and replaced the homoeologous segment in another subgenome, possibly . . .

Annotation:  The genus Pulmonaria (Boraginaceae) represents a taxonomically complex group of species in which morphological similarity contrasts with striking karyological variation. The presence of different numbers of chromosomes in the diploid state suggests multiple hybridization/polyploidization events followed by chromosome rearrangements (dysploidy). Unfortunately, the phylogenetic relationships and evolution of the genome, have not yet been . . .

Czechs are the first in the world to image the chromosome surface structure in its natural state through a new imaging method with multiple applications developed by scientists from the Czech Academy of Sciences' (AV CR) institutes, Brno environmental electron microscopy team head Vilem Nedela said today.  

Annotation:  DNA-protein crosslinks (DPCs) are a specific type of damage where DNA and a nearby protein become covalently bound. Persisting DPCs interfere with fundamental genetic processes such as DNA replication and transcription. We showed that ZEB covalently traps DNA METHYLTRANSFERASE 1 (MET1) and causes massive accumulation of its DPCs at repetitive 45S rDNA arrays. The understudied mechanism of ZEB-induced DPC repair and the complexity of DNA . . .