Importance of wild relative for drought tolerance in barley

What is it about?

Proline is an amino acid which accumulates at a very high amount during abiotic stress in plants. Proline accumulation is known to have protective roles under abiotic stress. In our study, we found wild barley named ISR42-8 that accumulated a high concentration of proline in leaves than other investigated barley genotypes under drought stress. The rate of proline accumulation was associated with the higher expression of the P5CS1 gene. The wild barley genotypes do not have agronomically desirable characters. Therefore, we introgressed the chromosome region that harbours the P5CS1 gene from ISR42-8 into a barley cultivar, Scarlett, by genetic crossing. The resulting genotype was named NIL-143. We performed experiments in the greenhouse and field to compare the performance of NIL-143 with Scarlett under drought stress. Similar to ISR42-8, the proline accumulation was higher in the leaves of NIL-143 compared to Scarlett under drought stress. Also, compared to the Scarlett, the leaves of NIL-143 remained green and the size of the seeds did not decrease due to drought stress. Our result indicated that the introduction of the allele of the P5CS1 gene from ISR42-8 into Scarlett was able to produce a genotype with a better ability to tolerate drought stress.

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Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash

Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Our study further supports the widely accepted notion that wild relatives of cultivated species are useful for breeding stress-tolerant crops.

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