History and future perspectives of barley genomics

Abstract

Barley (Hordeum vulgare), one of the most widely cultivated cereal crops, possesses a large genome of 5.1 Gbp. Through various international collaborations, the genome has recently been sequenced and assembled at the chromosome level by exploiting available genetic and genomic resources. Many wild and cultivated barley accessions have been collected and preserved around the world. These accessions are crucial to obtain diverse natural and induced barley variants. The barley bioresource project aims to investigate the diversity of this crop based on purified seed and DNA samples of a large number of collected accessions. The long-term goal of this project is to analyze the genome sequences of major barley accessions worldwide. In view of technical limitations, a strategy has been employed to establish the exome structure of a selected number of accessions and to perform high-quality chromosome-scale assembly of the genomes of several major representative accessions. For the future project, an efficient annotation pipeline is essential for establishing the function of genomes and genes as well as for using this information for sequence-based digital barley breeding. In this article, I review the existing barley resources along with their applications and discuss possible future directions of research in barley genomics.

An F2 Barley Population as a Tool for Teaching Mendelian Genetics

“…Among cereals, barley possesses several unique features for demonstrating genetic principles: (i) it is a diploid species (2n = 14), with a small genome that is easy to handle [ 11 ]; (ii) the barley genome sequence was made available a long time ago [ 12 ], and numerous genetic maps and genomic resources are accessible [ 13 ]; (iii) it possesses a wide range of phenotypic variation for various traits, particularly grain and spike traits, that are easily scored on dry material; and (iv) it is easy to cross and grow in a green house or field. There is a well-known barley collection, the Oregon Wolfe Barleys (OWB) ( ; accessed on 17 February 2021), developed several years ago as a teaching resource for understanding the importance and uses of genetic diversity in plants.…”

Proteins, Small Peptides and Other Signaling Molecules Identified as Inconspicuous but Possibly Important Players in Microspores Reprogramming Toward Embryogenesis

“…Our knowledge of the physiological responses of crop plants to abiotic stresses has significantly improved with the ongoing development of techniques including in vitro and biotechnology systems (Rai et al, 2011;Pérez-Clemente and Gómez-Cadenas, 2012;Maleki et al, 2019). The increasing availability of the sequenced genomes of crop species: the hexaploid wheat (International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium, 2014; https://urgi.versailles.inra.fr; Chapman et al, 2015;Monat et al, 2019), barley (BARLEX;Beier et al, 2017;Mascher et al, 2017;Sato, 2020), maize (Schnable et al, 2009), rice (Li J.-Y. et al, 2014), Brassica rapa (Zhang et al, 2018) in combination with advances whole genome shotgun sequencing techniques (WGS), allow in-depth molecular studies of non-model species (Rabanus-Wallace et al, 2021;e.g., in rye Li et al, 2021).…”

Chromosome-scale assembly of wild barley accession “OUH602”

“…From the same cross combination, recombinant chromosome substitution lines were developed to map morphological and agronomic traits ( Yun et al 2006 ; Gyenis et al 2007 ). “OUH602” has also been used to generate expressed sequence tags (ESTs) ( Sato 2020 ; see also https://harvest.ucr.edu/) (last accessed 2021-07-20) . Using these transcript sequences, a high-density genetic map was constructed from a cross between cv.…”