Funded Projects
GABI: A deeper view into the plant gene bouquet
The 21st Century will be full of major challenges. In order to cope, humanity will depend on plants more urgently than ever before, whether as a source of raw materials for industry, as food for the growing world population, or as storage for carbon dioxide emissions to mitigate climate change. This naturally means that the demands made of agriculture are rising. However, the nascent green potential of the Earth’s plants is vast. With this in mind, the BMBF has supported the "Genome Analysis of the Plant Biological System" program since the Nineties GABI is helping scientists to prepare maize for low German temperatures, to fully decipher the barley genome, to make wheat more sociable with its own kind, and to find the ideal potatoes for French fries.
Wheat - single no more
For decades, farmers have been using the method of hybrid breeding to create plants with new properties. This involves the crossing of genetically different plant lines – either the same type of plant or a different type altogether. This normally leads to the so-called heterosis effect, i.e. improved features such as better growth, or increased fruit yield and stress tolerance. Yields for maize, rapeseed and rye have already been significantly increased using hybrid approaches, but it is always crucial to prevent the plants’ from becoming self-fertilising.
Wheat needs only itself in order to pollinate. This ‘single’ life is something that the GABI scientists are hoping to eliminate.Source: Echino/pixelio.deThe genetic sterilisation of wheat
A natural self-pollinator such as wheat poses a problem for breeders: The self-fertilisation occurs before the blossoms open. A sterilisation by mechanical means, however, such as by removing the reproductive organs, is generally seen as too cost-intensive. Instead, in order to wean the wheat off its single life, various chemical and genetic approaches have been pursued, but these are either inefficient, or depend on the use of toxic reagents. Under the roof of the GABI FUTURE "HYBWHEAT" project, scientists from the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) in Gatersleben are collaborating with Nordsaat GmbH in Böhnshausen to replace the chemical castration of wheat with an approach that utilises genetic engineering.
New plants still fertile
The creation of a pollen-sterile wheat takes place over several stages, ending with the plant containing two fragments of a foreign gene, which together - through a molecular pairing - ensure that the pollen is sterile. This approach comes with a major advantage: If such a transgenic plant is crossbred, the offspring will only inherit one of the two gene fragments. This means that offspring remain fertile, meaning that the researchers are able to two birds with one stone: The offspring are fertile, and the spreading of a functioning foreign gene is by definition not possible. A proof of concept for this system on a laboratory scale is now in preparation.