Article: Ancient genetic tricks shape up wheat

Published online: 3 January 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060102-2

Ancient genetic tricks shape up wheat
Turning back the evolutionary clock offers better crops for dry regions.
Tom Simonite

By re-enacting an evolutionary event that happened to wheat thousands of
years ago, researchers are producing new plant varieties that could save
lives in regions where drought causes food shortages.

Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum), a staple food for millions of people around
the world, is the product of two rare genetic events that happened during
the Stone Age in a region of the Middle East known as the 'fertile
crescent'.

Two different species can't usually breed to produce hybrid offspring,
because their chromosomes don't match and can't pair properly during the
process that produces sex cells such as eggs and sperm. But sometimes a
genetic blip can produce sex cells with double the normal number of
chromosomes, side-stepping the problem. If two sex cells of this type
combine, a whole new fertile species with double the number of chromosomes
is produced.

Full Text at Nature
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060102/full/060102-2.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek


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