VALENCIA, March 3. (EUROPA PRESS) –
A study led by the University of Sichuan (China), in which the Institute of Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology (IBMCP) – a joint center of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) and the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) – participates )– describes how the genetic information of millet, one of the most cultivated cereals in the world, is encoded in its adaptation to high temperatures.
To carry out this work they have created a new computational methodology that creates detailed maps of genetic variations between individuals. In this way they have found genes that allow cereals to better tolerate heat, something essential to develop new varieties capable of adapting to climate change more quickly. The results are published in ‘Nature Genetics’.
The ‘instruction book’ of every living organism is written (encoded) in its DNA. Thus, to understand how some individuals of the same species are adapted to certain environments, it is necessary to know how these adaptation mechanisms are encoded in their genetic information.
In this project, an international research team in which Aureliano Bombarely, a CSIC researcher at the IBMCP in Valencia, participates, has studied how genetic information (which we collectively call genomes) is encoded in relation to the processes of adaptation to high temperatures of one of the most cultivated cereals in the world, millet (Pennisetum glaucum).
To do this, they have sequenced the genome of ten very different individuals of this species. Each of these genomes has more than 35,000 genes, and although they are 66% smaller than the human genome, that is a difficult amount of information to analyze in detail.
To facilitate the analysis, the research team has used a new computational methodology that builds a highly detailed map of genetic variations between individuals. “These maps are called ‘pangenomes’ and they have allowed us to better understand the genetic information of millet”, explains Aureliano Bombarely.
“The use of pangenomes to understand how variation in genetic information is related to differences between individuals and populations is a new methodology,” says Bombarely. “Before her, we simply couldn’t compare this information efficiently. We were losing essential information by comparing all individuals to a reference, rather than everything to everything.”
Now, with this new method, the researchers have found genes that allow cereals to better tolerate heat stress, participating in a series of molecular processes that more quickly eliminate proteins that have been ‘spoiled’ by excessive heat. According to Bombarely, this facilitates the creation of a new tool that will allow new varieties of millet adapted to climate change to be developed more quickly.
“In our case, it will help to develop millet varieties faster with different characteristics, such as greater tolerance to heat. This knowledge can also be used to improve other cereals such as corn and rice,” says the CSIC researcher. In addition, “the knowledge about these millet genes can be used in other cereals such as corn and rice. In fact, the work uses one of the millet genes in rice, demonstrating that those rice plants that overexpress the millet gene They are more tolerant of heat.”
The study was led by Professor Linkai Huang from Sichuan University, with whom the IBMCP Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Genomics group led by Aureliano Bombarely began collaborating on studies on millet tolerance to heat stress in 2017. One of his students PhD student, Haidong Yan, has coordinated the bioinformatics analyses, signing as first author on this paper. In addition, the IBMCP contributed to the experimental design in the early phases of this work and lent its computer equipment for the analyses.
The FAO estimated world millet production at 28.4 million metric tons in 2019. India is the world’s largest producer, followed by Niger and China. Currently, more than 50% of millet production is finding its way to alternative uses instead of being consumed only as a staple food. Millet is a food rich in nutrients such as copper, magnesium, phosphorus and manganese, which helps maintain a healthy life.
