research update Strawberry genome decoded


Oregon State scientists play big role in bid to improve fruit. By Tiffany Woods


R


esearchers at Oregon State University have helped sequence the genome of a wild strawberry, laying the groundwork for genetic improvements to related fruits like apples, peaches and pears. The advance was published online recently by the journal Nature Genetics.


“This will accelerate research that will lead to improved crops, particularly commercial strawberries,” said OSU plant molecular biologist Todd Mockler, one of the lead researchers. “It could lead to fruit that resists pests, smells better, tolerates heat, requires less fertilizer, has a longer shelf life, tastes better or has an improved appearance.”


An international team of more than 70 researchers, 13 of whom are at OSU, identified 34,809 genes on the seven chromosomes in the woodland strawberry known as Fragaria vesca. They chose the diminutive


perennial because it’s commonly used in research, is easy to breed, grows quickly and has a small genome. Additionally, it shares a substantial number of genes with apples, peaches, cherries, plums, and commercially cultivated strawberries – a crop that generated $12.9 million in gross sales for Oregon’s farmers in 2009, according to a report by the OSU Extension Service. As part of their findings, the scientists identified genes that they think might be responsible for some of the berry’s characteristics like flavour, aroma, nutritional value, flowering time and response to disease.


Knowing what individual genes do will allow researchers to breed crops for those specific traits. And in the case of tree fruits, they won’t have to wait years to see if those traits actually show up in the fruit. For example, with molecular


18 British Columbia Berry Grower • Spring 2011 LYNN KETCHUM


Plant molecular biologist Todd Mockler, of Oregon State University, holds a slide containing a DNA sample. He was part of a team that sequenced the genome of a wild strawberry.


breeding they would be able to cross a high-yielding pear tree with one that resists a certain fungal disease, and they’d be certain that the desired genes are actually present. The woodland strawberry is the smallest plant genome to be sequenced other than Arabidopsis


thaliana, a small flowering plant in the mustard family, because it has only about 210 million base pairs, Mockler said.


Base pairs are the molecules known as adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine that form a double-stranded DNA helix.


6993567 Canada Inc. dba


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24