Omics Consortium Established to Supercharge Climate-Adapted Wheat Breeding

Newswise — Adelaide University is leading the international Wheat Spatial Omics Consortium (WSOC) of more than 30 institutions in nine countries, which will explore how collaborative research in spatial omics technologies could improve wheat performance for growers.

Spatial omics is a suite of molecular technologies that measure and map the distribution of genes, proteins, and metabolites while preserving their native spatial context and cellular organisation, which conventional omics cannot achieve.

“Spatial transcriptomics allows us to measure the abundance of genes in specific cell types and time-points that are responsible for yield, pest and disease resistance, and abiotic stress tolerance of crops,” said Professor Zhong-Hua Chen, from Adelaide University’s School of Agriculture, Food and Wine and Waite Research Institute.

“Although widely applied in medical and animal sciences, the use of spatial omics in crops with large complex genomes, such as allohexaploid wheat, remains limited.

“Among our consortium members, we have the technological power to tackle this complexity across multiple tissues and stages of development.”

Professor Chen and the WSOC collaborators published a paper in Nature Genetics detailing the potential for the application of spatial omics in wheat.

“Our ambition is to build a comprehensive spatial omics atlas to benefit the whole wheat community. By mapping wheat biology at subcellular resolution across the full life cycle, the WSOC seeks to decode the integrated mechanisms of wheat development, stress response, and grain quality.” he said.

“We are producing this atlas in parallel with a set of research questions led by different groups that will allow us to tackle important issues in wheat breeding such as leaf rust resistance, root drought tolerance, and high grain quality for bread-making.

“This is an enormous task, but wheat is a globally critical crop, so improving grain yield and quality has real-world impacts for people experiencing food insecurity and malnutrition.”

Australian wheat exports are valued at more than AUD$9 billion annually, and exports from the 10 leading wheat-exporting countries is valued at more than USD$60 billion.

Professor Matthew Tucker, Director of the Waite Research Institute, said that spatial omics is a game-changing technology that revolutionises the way research is carried out.

“Technological advances of this nature don’t come along very often. We are very excited to be leading this consortium and building on the legacy of wheat research at Adelaide University,” he said.

“The omics atlas will provide opportunities to narrow down the basis for important heat-sensitive traits, such as flower fertility or grain quality, and understand which cell types are responsible for tolerance.”

Professor Jason Able, Dean of School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, said research outputs generated from this technology will contribute to the way wheat breeders consider building their next step-change variety.

“This research will enable global wheat breeders to unlock the interplay and complexity of plant neural networks and how genes respond to various biotic, abiotic, environmental and climatic factors,” he said

“Ultimately, tapping into this knowledge will create the wheat varieties of tomorrow and value-add significantly across the industry, thereby contributing to the profitability of this commodity.”