School of Agriculture, Food & Wine, The University of Adelaide, Urrbrae, South Australia, Australia.
Plant Biotechnol J. 2019 Oct;17(10):1905-1913. doi: 10.1111/pbi.13106. Epub 2019 Apr 11.
The development and adoption of hybrid seed technology have led to dramatic increases in agricultural productivity. However, it has been a challenge to develop a commercially viable platform for the production of hybrid wheat (Triticum aestivum) seed due to wheat's strong inbreeding habit. Recently, a novel platform for commercial hybrid seed production was described. This hybridization platform utilizes nuclear male sterility to force outcrossing and has been applied to maize and rice. With the recent molecular identification of the wheat male fertility gene Ms1, it is now possible to extend the use of this novel hybridization platform to wheat. In this report, we used the CRISPR/Cas9 system to generate heritable, targeted mutations in Ms1. The introduction of biallelic frameshift mutations into Ms1 resulted in complete male sterility in wheat cultivars Fielder and Gladius, and several of the selected male-sterile lines were potentially non-transgenic. Our study demonstrates the utility of the CRISPR/Cas9 system for the rapid generation of male sterility in commercial wheat cultivars. This represents an important step towards capturing heterosis to improve wheat yields, through the production and use of hybrid seed on an industrial scale.
杂种种子技术的发展和采用导致了农业生产力的大幅提高。然而，由于小麦的强自交习性，开发一种商业上可行的杂交小麦（Triticum aestivum）种子生产平台一直是一个挑战。最近，描述了一种用于商业杂交种子生产的新平台。该杂交平台利用核雄性不育迫使异交，并已应用于玉米和水稻。随着最近对小麦雄性育性基因 Ms1 的分子鉴定，现在有可能将该新型杂交平台扩展到小麦。在本报告中，我们使用 CRISPR/Cas9 系统在 Ms1 中产生可遗传的、靶向突变。Ms1 中的双等位基因移码突变导致小麦品种 Fielder 和 Gladius 完全雄性不育，并且选择的几个雄性不育系可能是非转基因的。我们的研究表明，CRISPR/Cas9 系统可用于快速产生商业小麦品种的雄性不育。这代表着通过在工业规模上生产和使用杂种种子来提高小麦产量、利用杂种优势的重要一步。
