Key Laboratory for Crop Genetic Resources and Germplasm Enhancement, Ministry of Agriculture (MOA)

Currently，the lab has five research areas, including Crop Germplasm Resources, Crop Germplasm Preservation, Crop Germplasm Resources Investigation and In-situ Conservation, Crop Genetic Resources and Crop Germplasm Enhancement.

Main mandates and objectives    The key lab mandate is to provide gene resources and important marker information for wheat breeding, and to ensure the development of wheat industry in China. Objectives to achieve this include wheat genetic diversity assessment, core collection construction, gene discovery and germplasm enhancement, application of genomics and genome evolution. These objectives will be achieved through a combination of principles and methodologies in modern plant genomics and conventional disciplines. A system of theories and technologies associated with germplasm research will be formulated to promote further research and utilization of China’s wheat gene resources.

1. Wheat Genetic Diversity and Core Collection  Based on morphological traits and 78 SSR markers of 5029 accessions, a core collection, a mini core collection and a functional core collection were constructed.  These cores were available for domestic researchers and users.

2. New Gene Diversity  We are exploring the strategies and methodology for new gene discovery based on the core collection. We search for new genes controlling higher yield, good quality, genes tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses in wheat breeding, and to promote breeding to achieve a yield breakthrough. 

3. Germplasm Enhancement and Utilization This objective is to establish rapid and high efficient methods for wheat germplasm enhancement, and to enhance breeding germplasm resources for breeding and genomics research.

4. Wheat Genomics and Molecular Evolution We organize and participate in the National and International Wheat Genomics Projects. We are developing and using high-throughput SNP markers, for gene discovery and isolating important functional genes through association mapping, in combination with map-based cloning and homologous cloning.  Genome and gene evolution is another interested point in our group.

Major Projects and Publications   Currently, the lab organizes and participates multiple research projects, including 973 program and 863 projects, NSFC, National Animal & Plant Transgenic Program, and International Challenge Program (GCP). Since 2009, more than 50 papers have been published in international journals, such as Nature, Plant J, Plant Physiol, New Phytol, PLos One, JXB, TAG. In addition, we successfully organized The 4th Asian Chromosome Colloquium in 2010, and The 20th International Triticeae Mapping Initiative in 2010. Since 2009, we have successfully organized the annual meeting of Wheat Genomics and Molecular Breeding in China.