New research published by plant scientists at the John Innes Centre in
Norwich points to a breakthrough that could lead to new, high-yielding,
disease-resistant crop varieties. Published in Molecular Plant and Microbe
Interactions, the research suggests that the wild grass Brachypodium
distachyon is an ideal model for studying disease resistance traits in wheat
and barley.

According to Rachel Goddard, lead author of the paper, they have been
investigating brassinosteroid (BR) signalling pathway in barley, a close
relative of wheat. She added that similar to GA-defective plants, barley
with a mutated BRI1 gene also seems to be a high yielding semi-dwarf that is
more resistant to necrotrophic fungi. Goddard and her colleagues found that
B. distachyon acts as a host to many of the same fungal pathogens that
infect wheat and barley. They also showed that when genes in the
BR-signalling pathway of B. distachyon are disrupted, the same disease
resistance traits are observed. This suggests that the mechanisms associated
with this pathway are conserved between barley and its grass relative.


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