News & Events
Among all other legumes, soybeans are protein powerhouses, providing a key protein source for humans and livestock around the world. Now, after 30 years, scientists at the University of Illinois have identified a gene with the largest impact on seed protein in soybeans. In 1992, then-graduate student Brian Diers published the first seed protein map for soybeans and identified the region of the genome where the gene might be located.
Two Norwegian ministers participated in this year's first opening of the Seed Vault. Sandra Borch, Minister of Agriculture and Food, and Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, Minister of International Development were present when thousands of seed samples were secured in the Seed Vault. The deposit includes seeds that were not previously represented in the Seed Vault, including nearly 100 forage species from the Australian Pastures Genebank and 50 crop species from the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), Germany.
Bacteria use surface appendages called type IV pili to perform diverse activities including DNA uptake, twitching motility, and attachment to surfaces. The dynamic extension and retraction of pili are often required for these activities, but the stimuli that regulate these dynamics remain poorly characterized. To address this question, we study the bacterial pathogen Vibrio cholerae, which uses mannose-sensitive hemagglutinin (MSHA) pili to attach to surfaces in aquatic environments as the first step in biofilm formation.
Gao Caixia's team from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology and Qiu Jinlong's team from the Institute of Microbiology have developed a new wheat mutant, Tamlo-R32, which shows robust resistance to powdery mildew disease and does not display any growth or yield defects. In 2014, the two teams have developed a wheat variant with robust disease resistance, but it grew poorly compared to wild-type wheat.
According to Russian experts, the adoption of genetic modification (GM) technology in the Sub-Saharan African (SSA) Region can help overcome most of the challenges related to agricultural productivity and food security. But this will be better achieved through a paradigm shift rather than cumulative change. The researchers highlighted how GM technology can help to address SSA's agricultural challenges:
Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) produces a wide range of volatile chemicals during fruit ripening, generating a distinct aroma and contributing to the overall flavor. Among these volatiles are several aromatic and aliphatic nitrogen-containing compounds for which the biosynthetic pathways are not known. While nitrogenous volatiles are abundant in tomato fruit, their content in fruits of the closely related species of the tomato clade is highly variable.
A food safety and security expert in Japan has recently written about genome editing and genetically modified (GM) crops in an effort to explain risk communication. Takeshi Yamazaki, chairman of the NPO Society for the Science of Food Safety and Security (SFSS) said that GM and genome-edited crops are safer than wild or conventional varieties.The expert said that comparing GM and genome-editing crops with "natural" seems safe at first glance, but it is rather the opposite for food safety experts.
Nigeria's National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) has announced the national guidelines on gene editing and distributed printed copies of the guidelines to the public in Abuja on February 10, 2022. The Director-General/Chief Executive Officer of NBMA, Dr. Rufus Ebegba, stressed NBMA's dedication in ensuring that all gene-edited products in Nigeria are properly regulated.
Vegetative storage proteins (VSPs) are known to serve as nitrogen reserves in many dicot plants but remain undiscovered in grasses, most widely grown group of crops globally. We identified and characterized a VSP in maize and demonstrated that its overexpression improved drought tolerance. Nitrogen supplementation selectively induced a mesophyll lipoxygenase (ZmLOX6), which was targeted to chloroplasts by a novel N-terminal transit peptide of 62 amino acids.
The courtesy meeting between top leaders of Vietnam Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and One-CGIAR South East Asia and Pacific took place on 15th November 2021. Minister Le Minh Hoan remarked that the discussion in this meeting would be insightful for the Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development Strategy to 2030 and Vision to 2050 which was in development.
An extended, multi-season drought is driving acute food insecurity in the Horn of Africa, with 12 to 14 million people now at risk as crops continue to wither and animals weaken, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and partners warned today. Resource-based conflicts are escalating as competition for water and pasturelands increases, and malnutrition rates are rising in affected areas of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, highlighting the need to sustain the rural livelihoods that underpin peace and food security across the Horn.
Preharvest sprouting (PHS) can severely damage barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) malting quality, but PHS resistance is often negatively correlated with malting quality. Seed dormancy is closely related to PHS. Increased temperature during grain fill can decrease seed dormancy in barley, but genetic components of seed dormancy temperature sensitivity are poorly understood. Six years of PHS data were used to fit quantitative trait locus (QTL) x environment mixed models incorporating marker data from seed dormancy genes HvAlaAT1