Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2016 Dec 10;10(1):5-24.
doi: 10.1111/eva.12434. eCollection 2017 Jan.

Back into the wild-Apply untapped genetic diversity of wild relatives for crop improvement

Hengyou Zhang  1 , Neha Mittal  1 , Larry J Leamy  1 , Oz Barazani  2 , Bao-Hua Song  1
Affiliations
Review

Back into the wild-Apply untapped genetic diversity of wild relatives for crop improvement

Hengyou Zhang et al. Evol Appl. .

Abstract

Deleterious effects of climate change and human activities, as well as diverse environmental stresses, present critical challenges to food production and the maintenance of natural diversity. These challenges may be met by the development of novel crop varieties with increased biotic or abiotic resistance that enables them to thrive in marginal lands. However, considering the diverse interactions between crops and environmental factors, it is surprising that evolutionary principles have been underexploited in addressing these food and environmental challenges. Compared with domesticated cultivars, crop wild relatives (CWRs) have been challenged in natural environments for thousands of years and maintain a much higher level of genetic diversity. In this review, we highlight the significance of CWRs for crop improvement by providing examples of CWRs that have been used to increase biotic and abiotic stress resistance/tolerance and overall yield in various crop species. We also discuss the surge of advanced biotechnologies, such as next-generation sequencing technologies and omics, with particular emphasis on how they have facilitated gene discovery in CWRs. We end the review by discussing the available resources and conservation of CWRs, including the urgent need for CWR prioritization and collection to ensure continuous crop improvement for food sustainability.

Keywords: advanced biotechnology; climate change; conservation; crop wild relatives; environmental stresses; food security.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The decrease in genetic diversity in modern crops during domestication due to bottleneck events
Figure 2
Figure 2
Flowchart showing the application of crop wild relatives (CWRs) and advanced technologies in crop improvement. Stage I, CWR collections. Stage II, gene discovery. Advanced biotechnologies can facilitate identification of desired genes or markers in CWRs using genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) and quantitative trait loci (QTL) strategies. Stage III, gene transfer. The resultant markers and causal genes can be transferred to crops by conventional breeding programs and/or transgenic techniques
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abedinia, M. , Henry, R. J. , Blakeney, A. B. , & Lewin, L. G. (2000). Accessing genes in the tertiary gene pool of rice by direct introduction of total DNA from Zizania palustris (Wild rice). Plant Molecular Biology Reporter, 18, 133–138.
    1. Aflitos, S. , Schijlen, E. , de Jong, H. , de Ridder, D. , Smit, S. , Finkers, R. , … Peters, S. (2014). Exploring genetic variation in the tomato (Solanum section Lycopersicon) clade by whole‐genome sequencing. The Plant Journal, 80, 136–148. - PubMed
    1. Akhunov, E. , Nicolet, C. , & Dvorak, J. (2009). Single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping in polyploid wheat with the Illumina GoldenGate assay. Theoretical and Applied Genetics, 119, 507–517. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ali, M. L. , Sanchez, P. L. , Yu, S. B. , Lorieux, M. , & Eizenga, G. C. (2010). Chromosome segment substitution lines: A powerful tool for the introgression of valuable genes from Oryza wild species into cultivated rice (O. sativa). Rice, 3, 218–234.
    1. Ammiraju, J. S. S. , Song, X. A. , Luo, M. Z. , Sisneros, N. , Angelova, A. , Kudrna, D. , … Wing, R. A. (2010). The Oryza BAC resource: A genus‐wide and genome scale tool for exploring rice genome evolution and leveraging useful genetic diversity from wild relatives. Breeding Science, 60, 536–543.

LinkOut - more resources