Dissection of genetic network underlying important agronomic traits accelerates modern breeding in soybean

With the support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the'Strategic Priority Research Program'of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,a collaborative study by the research groups led by Professors Tian Zhixi(田志喜),Wang Guodong(王国栋),and Zhu Baoge(朱保葛)from the

Genomic insights into the origin and evolution of spelt(Triticum spelta L.)as a valuable gene pool for modern wheat breeding

Spelt(Triticum aestivum ssp.spelta)is an important wheat subspecies mainly cultivated in Europe before the 20th century that has contributed to modern wheat breeding as a valuable genetic resource.However,relatively little is known about the origins and maintenance of spelt populations.Here,using resequencing data from 416 worldwide wheat accessions,including representative spelt wheat,we demonstrate that Eu-ropean spelt emerged when primitive hexaploid wheat spread to the west and hybridized with pre-settled domesticated emmer,the putative maternal donor.Genomic introgression regions from domesticated emmer confer spelt’s primitive morphological characters used for species taxonomy,such as tenacious glumes and laterflowering.We propose a haplotype-based"spelt index"to identify spelt-type wheat vari-eties and to quantify utilization of the spelt gene pool in modern wheat cultivars.This study reveals the ge-netic basis for the establishment of the spelt wheat subspecies in a specific ecological niche and the vital role of the spelt gene pool as a unique germplasm resource in modern wheat breeding.