from the soon-to-be-made-into-vitawheatavegamin dept.
The wheat genome has been sequenced after years of study. Scientists say this breakthrough will now allow new and better wheat varieties. With the increasing problem of how to feed the world's growing population — especially in poor areas (poor as in soil quality as well as monetarily) — this seems like it could be a very important breakthrough for future civilization.
Now, with a chromosome-based full sequence in hand, plant breeders will have high-quality tools at their disposal to accelerate breeding programs and to identify how genes control complex traits such as yield, grain quality, disease, pest resistance, or abiotic stress tolerance. They will be able to produce a new generation of wheat varieties with higher yields and improved sustainability to meet the demands of a growing world population in a changing environment.
(Score: 1) by LAngeOliver on Wednesday January 28 2015, @12:39PM
Still, I'm surprised it took so long to sequence and assemble such a common plant.
Decode your health [biogeniq.ca]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by iwoloschin on Wednesday January 28 2015, @01:23PM
Unfortunately, even if they make a gluten-free wheat, it won't make good bread. I've recently begun experimenting with gluten free baking (check out "Gluten-Free on a Shoestring Bakes Bread") and without gluten, or another similar protein, to provide a structure your bread won't rise. The book recommends using Whey Protein Powder as a substitute, and I can say that it works surprisingly well...unless you're lactose intolerant, in which case it might not be so great.
Things like pancakes and quickbreads might matter less, since they don't have a traditional proofing/rise period.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday January 28 2015, @11:35PM
Unfortunately, even if they make a gluten-free wheat, it won't make good bread.
I suspect its not that simple. Gluten intolerance is probably not based on the whole of the gluten protein, but, like so many other things, on some tangential external surface characteristics that may be engineered out of wheat some day.
According to Wiki, Celiac disease, (in genetically predisposed individuals,) results due to exposure to gliadin, and specifically to three peptides found in prolamins, the enzyme tissue transglutaminase modifies the protein, and the immune system cross-reacts with the small-bowel tissue, causing an inflammatory reaction.
For fad gluten avoiders on the other hand, gluten intolerance is really a self fulfilling prophesy of sorts. By reducing their gluten intake, their gut bacteria responsible for processing gluten is starved, perhaps completely out of existence, and they (temporarily) lose the ability to digest gluten.
You run into this when shipping North American grain to other parts of the world, even places like the UK. There is just enough differences in the wheat to make digestion problematic until the gut fauna and flora build up. You can get pills for this. I had an Australian flat mate in college who had to take enzyme "starter pills" before each spring before he returned home, or suffer a week of painful gas while he re-acclimatized to the wheat grown in his country.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 29 2015, @03:51AM
(Score: 3, Informative) by moondrake on Wednesday January 28 2015, @01:38PM
Assuming you did not read the FA... The wheat genome is about 6x bigger than the human genome. And its a allohexaploid, which means it is a mixture of 3 original species (yes, plants can have sex in kinky ways). This means much of the genome occurs in several copies, and it is quite hard to figure out which copy goes where (as DNA is typically broken into pieces before putting it into a sequences).
Personally though, the news is overrated. We knew most of the genome already for some time, and knowing a sequence tells you very little about the plant. I was trained as a molecular biologist but always disliked the hype and amount of money flowing into such projects (compared to other more useful things that could have been done). Luckily, even the big journals now realized that just sequencing yet another species is totally not interesting anymore.
Sequencing is a little bit as trying to understand architecture by counting bricks.
Most of the DNA has no clear function, and it is hard to ascribe a function to many genes that are clearly identifiable as being genes. Of those that have a function, it is most often only known what the resulting protein does chemically (i.e. add phosphate group to a sugar or something like that), not what this actually means in a network of thousands of other metabolic reactions. Sometimes we know what happens when you knockout the gene (which is not as useful as you might think. Imagine an experimenter removing eyes from his test-subjects and concluding eyes are organs involved in walking as the test-subjects now either stay put, run in circles, or bump into things), but most of the time this does (nearly) nothing or kills the plant outright. The problem is not the sequence, but what it all means and does. Obviously people are trying to figure this out now, but the progress is far slower and will take much more time compared to the actual sequencing.
Also, I doubt we are, presently at least, even capable of integrating this information. We either look at one function, feature or gene in detail, and miss all the possible permutations of its interaction with the organism, or we look at groups and patterns or behavior of the whole system, and fail to connect with the individual (potentially 1000s of) genes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28 2015, @02:35PM
I like to think of it more as this analogy. You are building a building you need blueprints. Without the blueprints you are not quite sure what you are going to get. However, just having a set of blueprints does NOT mean you can build a building or even know how to read them.
The problem we have is we can see the walls but we are not sure what rooms are which, which ones are load bearing members, and which ones are just closets.
Our understanding of proteins is very rudimentary. We can sort of see how they are made but not very well. We can switch things in and out and sort of get other effects. But are not really sure how that will affect other things. We are not even totally sure if we create particular proteins if it will do what we want. It is like asking a 10 year old who just learned .net basic last week to switch out the transmission in their parents car.
My point? Sequencing was an important step. But now the real work begins and even then we are still semi clueless as to what it will do. Never mind the social implications. Such as anti-GMO folks.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday January 28 2015, @02:29PM
Commonality has nothing to do with genome complexity. Oddly enough, neither does the size or complexity of the organism. There are worms with more complex genomes than humans.
Millennia of genetic manipulation of wheat by humans, has made wheat very complex.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Wednesday January 28 2015, @06:26PM
and without trying to dull the mood here, the Wheat genome was sequenced privately sometime ago....no citation because, well, *private*.
The hexaploid (multiploid) nature of wheat is common amongst plants or all types....however I believe only 2 alleles are active in any one cell.
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Wednesday January 28 2015, @02:41PM
How to feed the world's growing population is not a "technical" problem. We already produce more food than necessary, but a great deal of it goes to animal farming.
No technological advancement wil automagically fix this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_vegetarianism [wikipedia.org] (ref 8)
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(Score: 2) by moondrake on Wednesday January 28 2015, @03:04PM
I hear this point being made often. At the same time, when applying (lobbying) for grants we always write down this shit. I often wondered about whether it makes sense or not (not that it matters, governments want science to be useful, hence scientist claim their science is useful....shock...), but consider this:
if you can double the yield by applying this technical fix, would it still not help to alleviate the xx% of loss due to other, non technical, problems (such as people preferring meat, unequal distribution, etc etc)? Should we neglect to do one thing that we can change because we cannot fix another problem?
I do not think anybody can actually answer whether it will be successful in solving problems...but there are those who claim that green revolution did increase food security in some parts of the world. So could further crop/agricultural improvements not at least achieve something similar. Hopefully with less negative effects on the environment?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MrGuy on Wednesday January 28 2015, @03:55PM
While it's correct that the globe produces more food than is needed to feed the global population, it's not well distributed. Some countries have good soil and are food rich, others are food poor. Which presents a host of problems.
First, food is somewhat expensive (and lossy) to transport, so even if there's enough, getting it where it needs to go can be problematic.
But more importantly, having control of its own food supply is a pretty important national sovereignty issue. There was a time when the US just sent food surpluses to poorer countries (notably Africa) and gave it away for free. The result was a collapse in national agriculture (you can't compete with "free"), and dependence on international food aid (which gives foreign governments tremendous leverage over your national policies). Even when food is purchased on the world market rather than given away, you can get issues (Haiti had a massive famine when they became dependent on imported US rice and then the price went up).
There's no silver bullet for complex global issues like food production and distribution, but making it possible for areas that currently cannot be farmed to be productive is a good step towards giving all countries the ability to control their own agricultural destiny.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28 2015, @04:05PM
I think one of the problem is that food supports population growth because larger populations require more food. So if we create ways to yield more food using our existing resources what will happen? The population will simply grow to the point where those additional resources will once again be exhausted and there will, once again, be famine.
Until we can figure out how many people can comfortably live in a given area given the amount of food it can comfortably and reliably produce and until we can uniformly work together to keep populations from growing indefinitely any technological breakthroughs will simply result in the population growth required to exhaust the benefits of said breakthroughs resulting in more famine and poverty.
That's not to say there is anything wrong with technological advancement just that people should be aware no technological breakthrough can comfortably support an infinitely growing population given limited resources.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28 2015, @08:33PM
It should also be noted that soil either lacking in essential nutrients or lacking the required materials to build those nutrients won't be able to provide their population with plants that provide those nutrients even if you genetically modify those plants. Yes you maybe able to create wheat that can better survive without said nutrients but then those plants may not be able to provide people with those nutrients. Then again perhaps you can fortify those nutrients into the final products from other sources (but, of course, that can bring its own problems and difficulties).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 29 2015, @04:02PM
I think one of the problem is that food supports population growth because larger populations require more food.
If by "supports" you mean "enables", because in urban areas population is sustained only through migration, despite the overabundance of available food.
The population will simply grow to the point where those additional resources will once again be exhausted and there will, once again, be famine.
Not only does this not logically follow, there are observable examples that directly contradict your hypothesis.
no technological breakthrough can comfortably support an infinitely growing population given limited resources.
An excellent case for space exploration. Or for invading Poland. Whichever you prefer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 29 2015, @03:54PM
a host of problems
That is one weird way of spelling “good reasons to trade”.
Some have fertile soil. Others have rare earths and minerals. It's a win-win.
having control of its own food supply is a pretty important national sovereignty issue
Because it would be terrible if a nation could not do anything its parters disagree with. Although being dependent on a single source for anything is bad.
Increasing productivity should be a good thing. Too bad in the short term it inevitably seems to lead to inflation, unemployment, and economic crises, but that is no reason not to pursue it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by WillAdams on Wednesday January 28 2015, @05:16PM
Yes, but we're also currently burning 10 calories of petro-chemical energy (incl. fertilizer production) to make 1 calorie of food energy --- what to do when the oil runs out?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday January 28 2015, @08:37PM
And quite tasty [threadless.com] violent death [buzzymultimedia.com] at that!
Hooray for murder!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bootsy on Wednesday January 28 2015, @02:48PM
Shouldn't they be doing Quinoa? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa#Nutritional_value [wikipedia.org]
I am concerned about big Agriculture patenting it out of existence.
(Score: 1) by curunir_wolf on Wednesday January 28 2015, @04:16PM
Now, with a chromosome-based full sequence in hand, plant breeders will have high-quality tools at their disposal to accelerate breeding programs and to identify how genes control complex traits such as yield, grain quality, disease, pest resistance, or abiotic stress tolerance. They will be able to produce a new generation of wheat varieties with higher yields and improved sustainability to meet the demands of a growing world population in a changing environment.
And not a word about things like, you know, improving (or avoiding degradation) the actual nutritional value of the wheat. You know, that stuff that is used in virtually every processed food.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 4, Insightful) by EQ on Wednesday January 28 2015, @11:08PM
The problem is one of distribution. Much of the food aid either never gets there (diverted by warlords), or rots in warehouses. This is due to governmen incompetence, corruption and malfeasance (including war), which is why much of the starvation exists to begin with.