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Written By: Editorial Team | Published : August 19, 2018 12:20 PM IST
A team of international researchers, including 18 from India decoded the complex wheat genome which is considered to be insurmountable so far. The information generated in this major scientific breakthrough will help to identify genes controlling complex agronomic traits such as grain quality, yield, resistance to pests and diseases, as well as tolerance to heat, drought, water logging and salinity.
According to the PIB reports, Science & Technology Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan reportedly said reacting to the breakthrough, "Cracking of the bread wheat genome will go a long way in developing climate-resilient wheat and help tide over the possible impact of climate change on farm output."
The Science & Technology Minister also congratulated the Indian team who were involved in the research. He said it proves our scientists are capable of matching the best in the world in any discipline.
A group of 200 scientists from 73 research institutions in 20 countries were involved in the research. The data was published in the 'Science'. According to the Science reports, wheat geneticists said that the newly finished genome, which focuses 107,000 genes on the 21 chromosomes of bread wheat, has transformed their research as they and others gained early access to it.
A team of 18 Indian scientists led by Dr. Kuldeep Singh at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) Ludhiana co-authoring this paper, Professor J. P. Khurana at the University of Delhi South Campus, and Professor Nagendra Singh at ICAR-National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi, contributed to the decoding of Chromosome 2A of the wheat genome. This project was financially supported by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.
The authors said, the DNA sequence represents the highest quality genome sequence generated to date for the bread wheat and it has been ordered. The reference genome covers 94% (14.5 Gb) of the entire wheat genome. The bread wheat has a complex hexaploid genome which is 5 times larger than the human genome and 40 times larger than that of the rice genome.
The reference genome availability would help address global food security in the decades to come and accelerate the breeding of climate-resilient wheat varieties to feed the ever-increasing world population.
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