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Annotation: Effect of 5-azacytidine pre-treatment on microspore reprogramming and the effectiveness on microspore embryogenesis in triticale. Top panel: Morphology of microspores on the day of in vitro cultures initiation. Bars = 50 µm. Middle panel: Embryo-like structures (yellow arrows) formed after six weeks of in vitro cultivation. Bars = 2 mm. Bottom panel: Green and albino (white arrows) plants regenerated after nine weeks from microspores . . .

Plant geneticists from the Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IEB CAS) have been the first in the world to describe the function of two genes of Arabidopsis thaliana and their influence on the properties of this model plant. The prestigious journal Plant Cell has published their work which could have practical applications in the future.

Annotation:  Confocal imaging of live seed of Arabidopsis 72 hours after pollination. Red color shows cell walls and yellow NSE4A protein in cell nuclei of the syncytial (multi-nucleate) endosperm. Bar = 50 µm.Link

Jaroslav Doležel is Head of the Centre of Plant Structural and Functional Genomics of the Institute of Experimental Botany (IEB) and Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Palacký University with both institutes in Olomouc (Czech Republic).

Annotation:  Flow sorting enabled to dissect the genome of crested wheatgrass into individual chromosomes. The flow sorted chromosome- or chromosome-arm-specific subgenomic DNA samples provide attractive resources to perform structural and functional genome analysis. Successful sorting of B chromosomes (Bs) of crested wheatgrass provides an opportunity to determine their gene content and reveal their origin, as well as discovering the mechanisms . . .

Annotation: Recently published reference genomes of important small grain cereals were shown to represent 88 – 98% of their genome size. We aimed at identifying the missing parts in genomes of wheat and barley, considering tandem repeats as the major candidates. We found that shorter repeats can be present in the genome assemblies even if generated from short-read data but they may be difficult to integrate into pseudomolecules. We demonstrated . . .

Annotation:  Alien introgressions are often used to introduce beneficial traits from one species into another. However, exploitation of the introgressions in breeding requires proper transmission of introgressed segments to consecutive generations. In introgression cultivars of xFestulolium hybrids, we observed about 27–32% elimination of Festuca chromatin in a single round of multiplication. At this pace, Festuca chromatin would be . . .

Pranav Sahu, a scientist from the Olomouc workplace of the Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences was awarded in India for his research into plants and their reactions to climate change. His work was awarded the second place at a symposium of the European Molecular Biology Organization, taking place on 15-17 April 2019 in Delhi.  

Annotation: Blumeria graminis causing disease powdery mildew is serious pest of wheat casing significant loses in yield and quality. Introgression of new resistance genes from wild related species is attractive way for wheat genome improvement. However, the introgression is often accompanied with deleterious gene introduction and loss of recombination hampering cloning of such genes. If you are interest in way how to clone such introgressed powdery . . .

Annotation: Homoeologous chromosome pairing provides an opportunity to introgress chromosome segment from one species to another. On the other hand, it may cause destabilization of hybrid genome via formation of multivalents and univlents, and consequntly, the loss of chromosomes and/or uneven segregation. We developed hybrids of Mediterranean and Continental morphotypes of tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) with aim to introgress summer dormancy . . .

Annotation: We analyzed the meiotic behavior of misdivision products of meiosis: isochromosomes and telocentrics in wheat. The 2 most frequent scenarios were separation of sister chromatids in anaphase I or monopolar/bipolar attachment of the univalent to the spindle apparatus with unseparated chromatids. Misdivision was rare, and its frequency appeared directly related to the size of the centromere. Pairing of identical arms in isochromosomes did not . . .

Annotation: The  tools for unraveling the mechanisms of disease resistance in cereal crops are currently limited due to their large repeat-rich genomes and the lack of genetic recombination or cultivar (cv)-specific sequence information. We cloned the first leaf rust resistance gene Rph1 from cultivated barley using “MutChromSeq,” a recently developed molecular genomics approach for the rapid cloning of genes in plants. Flow-sorted 2H . . .

The Application Laboratory for Agricultural Research is the first laboratory at the Czech Academy of Sciences to link scientists with breeders and farmers. It was established under the Food for Future Program of the Strategy AV21 in February 2017 and is located at the Centre of Plant Structural and Functional Genomics of the Institute of Experimental Botany in Olomouc. 

Annotation: We conducted the comprehensive study on the genome instability of rye chromosomes or chromosome arms in wheat background. We found that the transmission of rye chromosomes to subsequent generations is lower than their wheat counterparts, which is a consequence of reduced pairing of rye chromosomes in meiosis. This lower frequency of pairing seems to be associated with the improper positioning of the telomeres of rye chromosomes at the onset . . .

Annotation: As a part of a joint effort coordinated by the IWGSC, we have constructed a BAC-based physical map of bread wheat chromosome arm 7DS and anchored it to one radiation hybrid map and three high resolution genetic maps. This map integration, interconnecting a total of 1,713 markers with ordered and sequenced BAC clones, provides a tool to speed up gene cloning in wheat. Moreover, inclusion of genomic resources from Aegilops tauschii facilitated . . .