Our research uses genetic and genomic resources to understand the origin of today's oat crop, and attempts to identify lost genetic variation that may be recovered and used to improve modern varieties. A century ago, oats were the largest crop by area in much of Europe and North America, and very large collections of cultivars and wild relatives were made across the world. We are assembling the genome sequence of red oat, Avena byzantina, in collaboration with Dr Martin Mascher (IPK, Gatersleben) and using this as a reference to understand the significance of genotypic diversity in material from historic and recent collections.

 

Approach: Oats have a reputation as a 'healthy' crop, based on beneficial dietary effects (satiety, cholesterol lowering, gluten-free) and on relatively low input and intervention requirements in the field. Some of these properties may reflect oats' late domestication, having apparently spread from Turkey to Central Europe as a weed of cereal fields and only then having been deliberately cultivated as a crop in its own right. By avoiding human selection for yield and food value, oats may have carried a greater genetic diversity and resilience through to the present day than cereals cultivated from the outset. We are working with Dr Edyta Paczos-Greda (U. Lublin) to understand how, where and when oats were domesticated.

 

Potential impact: Oats lag behind other cereals in the development of efficient tissue culture methods. With support from Senova and Saaten Union, and in collaboration with Sue Dalton we have been improving doubled haploid (DH) production and transformation protocols. We are testing the use of the lines that show best DH response as parents for introgression of traits from wild material.

 

Key research insights and findings: Assembling diploid and hexaploid Avena reference genomes allows us to catalogue gene content and organisation. Gene sequences can then be used to design baits to capture specific fractions of interest from diverse lines. Following on from an initial global exome capture based on our diploid genome zipper (Dr Nick Tinker, AAFC, Ottawa), we are developing new designs based on the byzantina reference. A particular area of interest is RenSeq, the targetting of pathogen resistance genes (with Dr Matt Moscou, TSL, Norwich).

 

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