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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 . . .

Annotation: Using 3D imaging confocal microscopy, we studied alien chromatin organization in somatic and meiotic nuclei of a heterozygote for an inversion of a rye chromosome arm in wheat background. We found that with some frequencies, rye telomeres were not positioned in the proper bouquet or Rabl orientation. This out-of-position seems to help homologous pairing of the inverted and standard chromosome arms and appears to be connected to the . . .

Jaroslav Doležel, a plant geneticist, commenced the 14th year of the Contemporary Chemistry lecture series with a talk on plant genetic information and its decoding. Contemporary Chemistry is regularly organized at the Faculty of Science under the aegis of Pavel Hobza, a highly cited world-renowned researcher and a Česká hlava 2008 honoree. 

If your kids are not taking firsts in school and instead they want to play guitar after school, don’t worry. Even so, they can go far – become a world-renowned scientist, even win the most important awards for science in the country. An illustrious example of this is the recipient of the 2018 Czech Mind prize, Jaroslav Doležel, who leads the Olomouc workplace of the Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences and is . . .

Scientists at the Center of the Region Haná for Biotechnological and Agricultural Research (CRH) have called on Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and other politicians to push for a change in European legislation on genetically modified plants in line with current developments in scientific knowledge. They are hereby responding to a decision of the European Court of Justice that organisms acquired by modern methods for targeted genome editing, such as CRISPR . . .

Authors: Gaál, E., Valárik, M., Molnár, I., Farkas, A., Linc, G.Journal: Plos One 13: e0208840, 2018DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0208840