title: Separating the wheat from the chaff - a strategy to utilize plant genetic resources from ex situ genebanks.
abstract: The need for higher yielding and better-adapted crop plants for feeding the world's rapidly growing population has raised the question of how to systematically utilize large genebank collections with their wide range of largely untouched genetic diversity. Phenotypic data that has been recorded for decades during various rounds of seed multiplication provides a rich source of information. Their usefulness has remained limited though, due to various biases induced by conservation management over time or changing environmental conditions. Here, we present a powerful procedure that permits an unbiased trait-based selection of plant samples based on such phenotypic data. Applying this technique to the wheat collection of one of the largest genebanks worldwide, we identified groups of plant samples displaying contrasting phenotypes for selected traits. As a proof of concept for our discovery pipeline, we resequenced the entire major but conserved flowering time locus Ppd-D1 in just a few such selected wheat samples - and nearly doubled the number of hitherto known alleles.
authors.affiliation: 1] Molecular Genetics, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), D-06466 Seeland OT Gatersleben, Germany [2] Institute for Biosafety in Plant Biotechnology, Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI) - Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, D-06484 Quedlinburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Keilwagen
authors.affiliation: 1] Genebank, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), D-06466 Seeland OT Gatersleben, Germany [2].
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kilian
authors.affiliation: University of Çukurova, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Field Crops, 01330 Adana, Turkey.
authors.forename: Hakan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Özkan
authors.affiliation: Institute for Resistance Research and Stress Tolerance, Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI) - Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, D-06484 Quedlinburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Babben
authors.affiliation: Institute for Resistance Research and Stress Tolerance, Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI) - Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, D-06484 Quedlinburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Dragan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Perovic
authors.affiliation: MIPS/Institute for Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Helmholtz Center Munich, D-85764 Neuherberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Klaus F X
authors.initials: KF
authors.lastname: Mayer
authors.affiliation: University of Gothenburg, Department of Earth Sciences, SE-405 30 Göteborg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Walther
authors.affiliation: Physiology and Cell Biology, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), D-06466 Seeland OT Gatersleben, Germany.
authors.forename: C Hart
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Poskar
authors.affiliation: Institute for Resistance Research and Stress Tolerance, Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI) - Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, D-06484 Quedlinburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ordon
authors.affiliation: International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium, Eversole Associates, MD 20816 Bethesda, USA.
authors.forename: Kellye
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Eversole
authors.affiliation: Genebank, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), D-06466 Seeland OT Gatersleben, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Börner
authors.affiliation: TraitGenetics GmbH, Am Schwabeplan 1b, D-06466 Seeland OT Gatersleben, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ganal
authors.affiliation: Genebank, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), D-06466 Seeland OT Gatersleben, Germany.
authors.forename: Helmut
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Knüpffer
authors.affiliation: Genebank, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), D-06466 Seeland OT Gatersleben, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Graner
authors.affiliation: 1] Molecular Genetics, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), D-06466 Seeland OT Gatersleben, Germany [2].
authors.forename: Swetlana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Friedel
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D017343:Genes, Plant / Q000235:genetics*; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010641:Phenotype; D014908:Triticum / Q000235:genetics*