Abstract
The modern cultivated wheat has passed a long evolution involving origin of wild emmer (WEM), development of cultivated emmer, formation of spelt wheat and finally establishment of modern bread wheat and durum wheat. During this evolutionary process, rapid alterations and sporadic changes in wheat genome took place, due to hybridization, polyploidization, domestication, and mutation. This has resulted in some modifications and a high level of gene loss. As a result, the modern cultivated wheat does not contain all genes of their progenitors. These lost genes are novel for modern wheat improvement. Exploring wild progenitor for genetic variation of important traits is directly beneficial for wheat breeding. WEM wheat (Triticum dicoccoides) is a great genetic resource with huge diversity for traits. Few genes and quantitative trait loci (QTL) for agronomic, quantitative, biotic and abiotic stress-related traits have already been mapped from WEM. This resource can be utilized for modern wheat improvement by integrating identified genes or QTLs through breeding.
Highlights
With the beginning of agriculture in the Neolithic period, plants having symbiotic relation with human experienced evolutionary process which promoted human cultural development and human civilization [1]
This review focused on three important aspects of wheat genetics and evolution: (i) The long wheat evolutionary process, including hybridization, domestication, polyploidization, and mutation; (ii) genome modifications occurred during evolution, including gene loss that might have important roles for wheat improvement; and (iii) utilization of wild emmer (WEM) for identifying novel genes that has not entered into bread or durum wheat
It demonstrates that utilizing the novel gene alleles in WEM is an efficient and feasible way for a wide range of trait enhancements in modern wheat breeding
Summary
With the beginning of agriculture in the Neolithic period, plants having symbiotic relation with human experienced evolutionary process which promoted human cultural development and human civilization [1] Some of those (rice, wheat and maize) are considered staple foods and feed a large proportion of the world’s population. Natural wheat and related allopolyploids have 2–10% less DNA than the sum of their parents which indicates elimination of DNA during evolution [9,10] Another reason behind rapid alteration and genomic change is using different breeding method extensively. Landraces of WEM have huge gene pool that consists of a rich diversity for many important agronomic, qualitative biotic stress, and abiotic stress-related traits [11,14,15,16] Many of these genes did not enter hexaploidy wheat, are considered as lost genes through evolution. This manuscript will focus on gene flow, and dynamics through genomic and morphological changes occurred during the wheat evolutionary process and different approaches recovering the lost genes in WEM for modern wheat improvement
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