Ananda Galaihalage K S, Myrans Harry, Norton Sally L, Gleadow Roslyn, Furtado Agnelo, Henry Robert J
Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia.
School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia.
Front Plant Sci. 2020 Jul 17;11:1108. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2020.01108. eCollection 2020.
(L.) Moench is a multipurpose food crop which is ranked among the top five cereal crops in the world, and is used as a source of food, fodder, feed, and fuel. The genus consists of 24 diverse species. Cultivated sorghum was derived from the wild progenitor subsp. , which is commonly distributed in Africa. Archeological evidence has identified regions in Sudan, Ethiopia, and West Africa as centers of origin of sorghum, with evidence for more than one domestication event. The taxonomy of the genus is not fully resolved, with alternative classifications that should be resolved by further molecular analysis. Sorghum can withstand severe droughts which makes it suitable to grow in regions where other major crops cannot be grown. Wild relatives of many crops have played significant roles as genetic resources for crop improvement. Although there have been many studies of domesticated sorghum, few studies have reported on its wild relatives. In , some species are widely distributed while others are very restricted. Of the 17 native sorghum species found in Australia, none have been cultivated. Isolation of these wild species from domesticated crops makes them a highly valuable system for studying the evolution of adaptive traits such as biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. The diversity of the genus has probably arisen as a result of the extensive variability of the habitats over which they are distributed. The wild gene pool of sorghum may, therefore, harbor many useful genes for abiotic and biotic stress tolerance. While there are many examples of successful examples of introgression of novel alleles from the wild relatives of other species from Poaceae, such as rice, wheat, maize, and sugarcane, studies of introgression from wild sorghum are limited. An improved understanding of wild sorghums will better allow us to exploit this previously underutilized gene pool for the production of more resilient crops.
高粱是一种多用途粮食作物，位列世界五大谷类作物，用作食物、饲料、饲草和燃料来源。该属包含24个不同物种。栽培高粱源自野生祖先种拟高粱亚种，其广泛分布于非洲。考古证据已确定苏丹、埃塞俄比亚和西非地区为高粱的起源中心，且存在不止一次驯化事件的证据。该属的分类尚未完全解决，替代分类有待进一步分子分析来解决。高粱能耐受严重干旱，这使其适合在其他主要作物无法生长的地区种植。许多作物的野生近缘种作为作物改良的遗传资源发挥了重要作用。虽然对驯化高粱已有很多研究，但对其野生近缘种的报道却很少。在澳大利亚，一些物种分布广泛，而另一些则分布极为有限。在澳大利亚发现的17种本土高粱物种中，没有一种被栽培过。这些野生物种与驯化作物隔离，使其成为研究生物和非生物胁迫耐受性等适应性性状进化的极有价值的系统。高粱属的多样性可能是由于它们所分布的栖息地具有广泛变异性而产生的。因此，高粱的野生基因库可能蕴藏着许多用于非生物和生物胁迫耐受性的有用基因。虽然有许多成功的例子，即将来自禾本科其他物种（如水稻、小麦、玉米和甘蔗）野生近缘种的新等位基因导入，但从野生高粱导入基因的研究却很有限。更好地了解野生高粱将使我们能够更好地利用这个以前未充分利用的基因库来培育更具抗逆性的作物。
