An international research team in collaboration with researchers from Tel Aviv University isolated from wild plants three genes for resistance to the rust fungi, which cause the most serious diseases that damage wheat crops in the world. The isolation of the genes and their transfer to wheat became possible thanks to a series of technological developments, which greatly shorten the amount of time needed to locate and isolate genes from wild plants and transfer them to cultivated plants
An international research team in collaboration with researchers from Tel Aviv University isolated from wild plants three genes for resistance to the rust fungi, which cause the most serious diseases that damage wheat crops in the world. Isolating the genes and transferring them to wheat became possible thanks to a series of technological developments, which greatly shorten the amount of time needed to locate and isolate genes from wild plants and transfer them to cultivated plants.
The three new genes were isolated from wild plants relatives of wheat, which are part of the seed collection kept in the gene bank named after the Lieberman and Okino families at the Cereal Research Institute in the Faculty of Life Sciences at Tel Aviv University. Two of the genes give plants a vaccine against cane rust disease, and they were isolated by an international research team led by researchers from the UK. The third gene was isolated by researchers from Tel Aviv University, and it gives plants resistance to two different diseases - leaf rust and striped rust, two diseases that are getting worse due to the rise in global temperatures. According to Prof. Amir Sharon, head of the Cereal Research Institute, the isolation of the three genes was made possible thanks to technological breakthroughs, which will be used to isolate additional genes for a variety of traits, such as high yield and resistance to climate hazards, and will be used to develop high-yield wheat varieties that are resistant to diseases, pests and environmental conditions.
The institute's research team explains that wheat currently provides about 20% of all the calories and protein that humanity consumes, and up to 50% in some parts of the world. During the cultivation and cultivation of wheat, the genetic diversity of the wheat varieties was reduced, and they became vulnerable to diseases, pests and climatic hazards. The need to produce wheat varieties that can grow in extreme environmental and weather conditions and deal with diseases and pests is increasing as the climate crisis worsens. "Just as each of us carries only a small part of the genes of our grandparents, so the cultivated wheat contains only a handful of the total genetic load of its ancestral parents. Since wheat was born in our region, the wild plants from the cereal family that grow in our region are the ancestral parents of cultivated wheat and contain a rich variety of properties, which are needed to cultivate improved wheat varieties. Prof. Sharon explains.
"Over the years traits have indeed been transferred from wild plants to wheat, but most of the genetic potential has not yet been used, since isolation of a single gene could have taken over ten years. Recently there have been a number of breakthroughs, mainly the advancement of genomic sequencing technologies and developments in the field of bioinformatics, through which we can today isolate new genes in less than a year. Thus, only in the last year, the three genes that confer resistance against rust diseases were isolated from our material. By transplanting the genes we isolated from the wild plant into cultivated wheat varieties, it will be possible to reduce the damage caused by diseases without the need for pesticides, thereby helping to increase yields and protect the environment. In addition to diseases, we collaborate with researchers in Israel and around the world, who work on isolating genes for other interesting properties from our material. For example, in collaboration with researchers from Be'er Sheva University, genes were recently isolated from wild wheat, which gives wheat resistance to pests, and at our institute we identified a new gene from wheat plants, which can confer resistance to drought.
Prof. Sharon adds that at the same time as methods for isolating new genes, there has been great progress in the field of biotechnology, and in particular in the technologies of gene transfer and genomic editing. These technologies make it possible to plant new genes in cultivated plants as well as to change the original wheat genes to give them new properties. The institute implemented the new technologies and today they offer wheat transformation and genetic editing services to other universities and commercial companies as well.
"With the support of the chief scientist of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Israeli Center for Genomic Editing in Agriculture, we established a center for the transformation and genomic editing of wheat at the Cereal Research Institute. This is a significant milestone, because until now it has not been possible to carry out an effective transformation of wheat here in Israel. Using this technology we can transfer new genes, and use methods of genomic editing to give new traits to wheat. We use the systems we have established to promote the research being done at the institute, and also help companies and researchers from other institutions in Israel, who need this technology," says Prof. Sharon.
Prof. Sharon concludes: "Our gene bank today has over 17,000 seeds of 20 different species of wild grains, which were collected throughout Israel during the last fifty years. The uniqueness of the collection is the large number of species that are relatives of cultivated wheat, and the fact that a large part of the plants were collected in habitats that no longer exist due to the accelerated urban development that Israel has undergone. This collection is actually a vault of genes that are needed to produce high-yielding wheat varieties with improved capacity to face the challenges of climate change. The new technologies are the key to the safe: with them we can now quickly locate and retrieve the genes we need and transfer them to wheat."
