Winners of the Wolf Prize for Agriculture 2014: Returning genes lost from wild animals to domesticated animals and from wild plants to domesticated plants is essential for improving the food supply * The two are part of the nine winners who received the award from the President of the country

According to Prof. Jorge Dovchovski from the University of California, Davis and Prof. Leif Anderson from the University of Uppsala in Sweden who studied the genomes of plants and domesticated animals (respectively): during ten thousand years of evolution we adapted the plants and domesticated animals to our needs

Prof. Jorge Dovchovski from the University of California, Davis and Prof. Leif Andersson from Uppsala University in Sweden won the 2014 Wolf Prize for Agriculture for their groundbreaking contribution to plant and animal science research through the use of advanced technologies in genome research. The researchers presented the research that earned them the prize at a conference held last Thursday in the Knesset. The two received the award yesterday (Sunday) from the president of the country together with the winners in the five other fields.
Anderson won the award for a breakthrough in the study of domesticated animals using tools developed for the Genome Project. "For 10,000 years we changed the animals and adapted them to environments foreign to them. For most of these years we lived close to the animals that were our homes, but in the last generation we lost this connection."
Anderson says that hybrids made over the years have caused differences within populations of animals of the same species. An example of this is that there are many more than one breed of domestic chicken, and there are genetic differences between them. "One of my colleagues conducted such an experiment and raised chickens, where in each generation he selected them according to size and separated the largest and smallest chickens. Thus two populations were created. When we used the systems developed for the human genome project, we saw the genetic differences between the two populations."
"In my laboratory we study all domesticated animals (cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, horses as well as pets) and we were able to carry out studies based on genetic mapping in almost all of them. The goals of the research are to identify the genes and the mutations that occur in them and which cause the differences expressed in the vast variety of animals and we intend to develop new knowledge about the biological mechanisms, which will provide us with tools that can be applied in animal breeding. Another goal is to get new information about humans, because many genes are shared or similar between humans and animals."
"Already at the beginning of the era of genome research, in 1989 I decided to try to see what was happening in the animal world and researched how to change the wild boar and make it domesticated. We did hybridization and created a hybrid animal characterized by a mixture of the genes that were different between the animals. The crossbred pigs had stronger muscles and lower fat content, thanks to a gene related to insulin activity and heart rate. We discovered the binding protein in the sequence of those genes, and found that it also exists in humans. We actually discovered a new mechanism that regulates the heart rate in humans."

"This is perhaps the most important experiment in my scientific career where we used genetics to show why the difference is so important. After comparing the sequences we saw that the sequence of the wild boar can bind the ZBED6 protein and the domestic pig cannot. Through comparison with other animals we showed that this sequence entered the genome 200 million years ago and over millions of years the gene disappeared in some of the animals. The protein is very concentrated and is found in the placentas of all mammals, so we concluded that the genome changed the body's natural selection and removed it in those animals."
"We found mice that don't have this gene and thus we actually returned to the situation of 200 million years ago, and we are investigating what happens in the absence of the gene. This is how we actually showed the relevance of our work on wild boars to human medicine."

As a complement to Anderson's research, the second winner, Prof. Jorge Dybkowski from Rice University in California, USA, told about the nutritional value of wheat as shown by the genome research, which in plants is much greater and more diverse than in animals.

"We know wheat very well. Like the animals, wheat also made its home 10,000 years ago, among others in the Middle East region. Today everyone eats bread and every year around 650 million tons of wheat are grown all over the world. 20% of the calories we consume daily and more than 20% of the proteins come from wheat. The wheat got from place to place through humans, and its adaptation to different environments was done through a very flexible gene."
"We tested many sequences of this gene, you have to remember that wheat has 3 times more genes than humans. We know there are many variations of the gene. The genome of plants changes fantastically, every 5 million years, much more than in animals, so it is very difficult to measure this mechanism and the mutations that occur in it. Only recently were we able to see the sequences thanks to genome sequencing technology."

"We are particularly investigating the genes that cause changes in wheat resistance. In a million years of evolution, some of the properties of wheat disappeared. The wheat mother was found in Israel in the sixties. We took this plant and carried out its genetic mapping, together with researchers from the University of Haifa (including Prof. Assaf Diesenfeld, who is now a professor at Tel Aviv University). We cloned these plants so we could study them (the original amount was small). After that, we conducted a comprehensive genetic mapping of tens of thousands of plants, to find the gene that causes wheat to become non-functional. We discovered that if the gene is replaced with a normal gene, it is possible to increase the protein and zinc content of the wheat kernel by 10%."
"It was a gene that controlled the process of the plant's death and when the plant dies it must send all the minerals back in an organized form to the nucleus and from there to the soil. If you remove the gene, the death of the plant is delayed. We managed to insert the correct gene into the kernel, and today the improved wheat is already being grown commercially in the USA and Canada."

The Wolf Prize has been awarded since 1978 to scientists and artists. The 2014 Wolf Prize was won by nine scientists from five countries. The award winners will receive a cash grant of one hundred thousand dollars. Award winners:
• Prof. Jorge Dobchovski (University of Davis, USA), Prof. Leif Andersson (University of Uppsala, Sweden) and Prof. Joachim Messing (University of Potgers, USA) - Award in the field of agriculture
• Prof. Chi-Wee Wong (Academia Sinica, Taiwan) – prize in the field of chemistry
• Prof. Peter Sarnak (Princeton University, USA) - Prize in the field of mathematics
• Prof. Victor Ambrose (University of Massachusetts, USA) Prof. Gary Rubkon (Harvard University, USA) and Prof. Nachum Sonnenberg (McGill University, Canada) - Award in the field of medicine
• Mr. Olafur Eliasson (Denmark) – prize in the field of art

The Minister of Education addressed the award winners and said: "Today you join a magnificent family that includes the best minds in the world."

see also:

• "When people realize that genetically modified food has good properties for health, they will prefer to consume it", says 2013 Wolf Prize Winner for Agriculture Prof. Joachim Messing.