Good news, researchers have published a high resolution draft of the barley genome. Why is this important? Because by being able to map out the barley genome it will be possible to see the genes at which point are being switched on and off and the mutations that occur during development, which will result in make better beer! Now, I'm not much of a beer person but I bet beer drinkers are rejoicing about this. Aside from making better beer, this publication is a critical step towards barley varieties being able to cope with the demands of climate change. It is also a helpful way to fight against cereal crop diseases that affect the economy when they destroy millions of pounds each year. Barley is the world's fourth most important cereal crop and is also a major component of the animal feed for meat and dairy industries. Barley straw is a source of nutrition for ruminants and is used for animal bedding and frost protection in the winter.
Why hasn't barely's genome been fully mapped yet you ask? Well that is because it is almost twice the size of humans. Its genome contains a large proportion of closely related sequences that are hard to piece together into a linear order. By developing and applying a series of strategies that allowed them to go around the difficulties, the International Barley Genome Sequencing Consortium (IBSC)has managed to construct a high resolution draft DNA sequence assembly that contains the majority of barley genes in linear order.
Hopefully this leads to better beer soon, oh and the progression and preservation of the worlds fourth most important cereal crop!
Journal Reference:
- Klaus F. X. Mayer et al. A physical, genetic and functional sequence assembly of the barley genome. Nature, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nature11543
That must've taken a long time to complete. I'm a big time cereal fan so this is great news for me! Maybe with this new found knowledge they'll be able to figure out how and when significant factors occur in the life of barley for our benefit.
ReplyDeleteHah.. Just as I was asking myself the question of why this genome hasn't been mapped before, you answered the question.
ReplyDeleteMaybe sequencing this genome can help us find homologs in humans. It would probably be a pretty long process because of how long both of the sequences are, but barely might contain significant genes that other model organisms with shorter genomes don't.
This is completely fascinating. I'm not a beer drinker either, but I do love cereal so this is really cool information to know and understand. I honestly did not know much about barley or really anything about its importance. I also found it very interesting that the genome for barley is that much larger than the human genome.
ReplyDeleteThe barley genome being that large would not be what I expect. I wonder if there are large sections that are noncoding or if there is a reason for it being so large. Maybe it is not as efficient as humans. But this is a pretty cool discovery. The line between science and fun will get a little bit smaller if we can genetically engineer better beers.
ReplyDeleteGene duplication and long serial repeats do indeed make genome assembly difficult.
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