Are cereal grasses a single genetic system?

Abstract

In 1993, a passionate and provocative call to arms urged cereal researchers to consider the taxon they study as a single genetic system and collaborate with each other. Since then, that group of scientists has seen their discipline blossom. In an attempt to understand what unity of genetic systems means and how the notion was borne out by later research, we survey the progress and prospects of cereal genomics: sequence assemblies, population-scale sequencing, resistance gene cloning and domestication genetics. Gene order may not be as extraordinarily well conserved in the grasses as once thought. Still, several recurring themes have emerged. The same ancestral molecular pathways defining plant architecture have been co-opted in the evolution of different cereal crops. Such genetic convergence as much as cross-fertilization of ideas between cereal geneticists has led to a rich harvest of genes that, it is hoped, will lead to improved varieties.