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A breeding strategy targeting the secondary gene pool of bread wheat: introgression from a synthetic hexaploid wheat

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Introgressing one-eighth of synthetic hexaploid wheat genome through a double top-cross plus a two-phase selection is an effective strategy to develop high-yielding wheat varieties.

Abstract

The continued expansion of the world population and the likely onset of climate change combine to form a major crop breeding challenge. Genetic advances in most crop species to date have largely relied on recombination and reassortment within a relatively narrow gene pool. Here, we demonstrate an efficient wheat breeding strategy for improving yield potentials by introgression of multiple genomic regions of de novo synthesized wheat. The method relies on an initial double top-cross (DTC), in which one parent is synthetic hexaploid wheat (SHW), followed by a two-phase selection procedure. A genotypic analysis of three varieties (Shumai 580, Shumai 969 and Shumai 830) released from this program showed that each harbors a unique set of genomic regions inherited from the SHW parent. The first two varieties were generated from very small populations, whereas the third used a more conventional scale of selection since one of bread wheat parents was a pre-breeding material. The three varieties had remarkably enhanced yield potential compared to those developed by conventional breeding. A widely accepted consensus among crop breeders holds that introducing unadapted germplasm, such as landraces, as parents into a breeding program is a risky proposition, since the size of the breeding population required to overcome linkage drag becomes too daunting. However, the success of the proposed DTC strategy has demonstrated that novel variation harbored by SHWs can be accessed in a straightforward, effective manner. The strategy is in principle generalizable to any allopolyploid crop species where the identity of the progenitor species is known.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Chi Yen and Junliang Yang (Sichuan Agricultural University) for suggestions on the use of synthetic wheat; Robert McIntosh (University of Sydney) and Robert Koebner (smartenglish2008@gmail.com) for revising the article; the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium for providing pre-publication access to the RefSeq v1.0 assembly and its annotation; Jizeng Jia (Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences) for providing SNP flanking sequences; Peng Qin (Yunnan Agricultural University) for running trials in Yunnan province; and Qiuzhen Jia (Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences) for providing Chinese Puccinia striiformis. f. sp. tritici races. This research was financially supported by the Chinese Government National Key Research and Development Program (2016YFD0102000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31071420, 30700495, 31671689, 31071418, 30270804, 31601300 and 31661143007), the Sichuan Provincial Agricultural Department Innovative Research Team (wheat-10) and the Sichuan Province Science and Technology Department Crops Breeding Project (2016NYZ0030). MJH and Rothamsted Research is supported via the Designing Future Wheat project (BB/P016855/1) by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

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  1. Ming Hao and Lianquan Zhang have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Triticeae Research Institute, Sichuan Agricultural University, No. 211 Huiming Rd, Wenjiang District, Chengdu City, 611130, Sichuan Province, People’s Republic of China

    Ming Hao, Lianquan Zhang, Laibin Zhao, Shoufen Dai, Die Xie, Qingcheng Li, Shunzong Ning, Zehong Yan, Bihua Wu, Xiujin Lan, Zhongwei Yuan, Lin Huang, Jirui Wang, Ke Zheng, Wenshuai Chen, Ma Yu, Xuejiao Chen, Mengping Chen, Yuming Wei, Youliang Zheng & Dengcai Liu

  2. Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, People’s Republic of China

    Aili Li & Long Mao

  3. Crop Research Institute, Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Chengdu, 610066, People’s Republic of China

    Wuyun Yang

  4. Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining, 810008, Qinghai, People’s Republic of China

    Huaigang Zhang

  5. International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, 56237, Texcoco, Mexico

    Masahiro Kishii

  6. Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, AL5 2JQ, UK

    Malcolm J. Hawkesford

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  1. Ming Hao
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Contributions

D.L, L.Q.Z., M.H. and Y.Z. designed the project; D.L., L.Q.Z., M.H., Z.W.Y, S.N., S.D., Z.H.Y., B.W., Y.Z., X.L., H.Z. and L.H. produced the new elite lines; L.B.Z., D.X., Q.L., W.C. and K.Z. performed the FISH and SDS-PAGE analyses, gene isolation and plant-type comparison. M.H, M.Y., Y.W., L.B.Z., A.L. and W.Y. performed the phenotypic and QTL analyses. M.H., D.L., J.W., M.C. and X.C. performed the SNP genotyping and statistical analyses. D.L., M.H., M.K., M.J.H. and L.M wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ming Hao, Lianquan Zhang or Dengcai Liu.

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Communicated by Ian Mackay.

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Hao, M., Zhang, L., Zhao, L. et al. A breeding strategy targeting the secondary gene pool of bread wheat: introgression from a synthetic hexaploid wheat. Theor Appl Genet 132, 2285–2294 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-019-03354-9

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