Triticeae crop genome biology: an endless frontier

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Jul 20:14:1222681. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1222681. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

Triticeae, the wheatgrass tribe, includes several major cereal crops and their wild relatives. Major crops within the Triticeae are wheat, barley, rye, and oat, which are important for human consumption, animal feed, and rangeland protection. Species within this tribe are known for their large genomes and complex genetic histories. Powered by recent advances in sequencing technology, researchers worldwide have made progress in elucidating the genomes of Triticeae crops. In addition to assemblies of high-quality reference genomes, pan-genome studies have just started to capture the genomic diversities of these species, shedding light on our understanding of the genetic basis of domestication and environmental adaptation of Triticeae crops. In this review, we focus on recent signs of progress in genome sequencing, pan-genome analyses, and resequencing analysis of Triticeae crops. We also propose future research avenues in Triticeae crop genomes, including identifying genome structure variations, the association of genomic regions with desired traits, mining functions of the non-coding area, introgression of high-quality genes from wild Triticeae resources, genome editing, and integration of genomic resources.

Keywords: Triticeae; barley; genome sequencing; oat; pan-genome; rye; wheat.

Publication types

  • Review

Grants and funding

The work of the authors is funded by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences XDA24020203 (YJ) and XDA24020201 (FL), by Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation grants ZR2021ZD30 and ZR2022ZD22 (HH and YJ), and by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, grants 31921005 (YJ and FL), and 31825002 (YJ).