Introduction

The RECBREED Project will provide plant breeders with new genetic and molecular tools allowing better control over homologous recombination (HR) in both somatic and meiotic cells. The expected outcomes of this research are efficient Gene Targeting  (GT) technologies for precise engineering of plant genomes as well as the ability to control rates of meiotic recombination between homologous or homeologous chromosomes in classical breeding. Successful plant breeding depends on efficient recombination of advantageous traits to form new crop varieties.

The world-wide basis for food and feed is represented by plants. The world is changing, due to population increase, erosion of important land resources and climatic disturbances. To be able to cope with increased demand for food and feed crops we will have to be more productive and better adapted to change. Classical breeding efforts, for at least the last 10 millennia, provided the basis for settled life, civilization and art. However, classical breeding is too slow for our fast-developing world. It will continue to be important, but will have to be assisted by molecular breeding. This procedure allows development and use of tools to enhance the speed and/or precision of exchange of genetic material. This exchange of genetic material, called homologous recombination, is a process at the basis of evolution, including man-made evolution (i.e. breeding). To study and use recombination is exactly the goal of RECBREED, the acronym being a chimera of recombination and breeding.

Breeding is the very basis of Agriculture. The first plant domesticators, already 12,000 years ago selected desirable variants (mutants and recombinants) from natural populations. Following on in this tradition, modern breeders screen very large number of crosses and plants, relying on the use of meiotic recombination to break undesirable linkage associations or obtain recombinants with new, desirable combinations of genes. Thus natural variation in gene pools is used to obtain cultivars that have improved quality as food and feed, as well as plants with improved productivity and yield stability under low input production systems and under biotic and abiotic stress. Improvements in the control and efficiency in plant breeding will help to transfer beneficial traits into elite cultivars and enhancement of recombination efficiency will accelerate breeding cycles and permit the use of smaller breeding populations. Meiotic recombination is a specific form of HR occurring in the production of germ cells. In addition to its essential role in Meiosis, HR is an important DNA repair mechanism for somatic cells and can also be applied for the controlled modification of a specific chromosomal target sequence via the technique named gene targeting (GT). GT enables the precise alteration of genomes, from single nucleotide modifications to gene replacements and knockouts. This technique is an invaluable tool for functional genomics as well as for biotechnology applications and GT technology has far-reaching potential applications in plants as well as in other organisms.

Introductory presentation

 

 

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