Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

Wheat GWAS Leads to Heat Tolerance Loci

In Communications Biology, a team from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center and the Earlham Institute report on findings from a genome-wide association study centered on heat tolerance traits in wheat, which uncovered three heat tolerance-linked loci originating in exotic, wild relative plants. With information on 149 elite, landrace, or wild-related spring wheat lines grown in field conditions in the Sonora desert over two years, the investigators searched for marker trait associations specific to heat tolerance, highlighting introgressed sequences from the ancestral plant Aegilops tauschii and other exotic-derived heat tolerance loci before digging into the causal genes behind the associations. "These three markers can be deployed into marker-assisted breeding or introgression pipeline programmes to incorporate heat resilience traits into elite cultivars," the authors note. "The fact that no yield penalty was identified under more favorable conditions adds to their deployment in terms of yield stability under increasing temperatures."

The Scan

Machine Learning Helps ID Molecular Mechanisms of Pancreatic Islet Beta Cell Subtypes in Type 2 Diabetes

The approach helps overcome limitations of previous studies that had investigated the molecular mechanisms of pancreatic islet beta cells, the authors write in their Nature Genetics paper.

Culture-Based Methods, Shotgun Sequencing Reveal Transmission of Bifidobacterium Strains From Mothers to Infants

In a Nature Communications study, culture-based approaches along with shotgun sequencing give a better picture of the microbial strains transmitted from mothers to infants.

Microbial Communities Can Help Trees Adapt to Changing Climates

Tree seedlings that were inoculated with microbes from dry, warm, or cold sites could better survive drought, heat, and cold stress, according to a study in Science.

A Combination of Genetics and Environment Causes Cleft Lip

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers investigate what combination of genetic and environmental factors come into play to cause cleft lip/palate.