Abstract
The Institute of Evolution's (IoE's) Wild Lettuce Gene Bank (WLGB), established in the mid 1990s, contains new and extensive collections of five wild Lactuca relatives (WLRs) originating from Israel and Armenia: L. serriola, L. aculeata, L. georgica, L. altaica, and L. saligna. The objectives of the WLGB relate to the identification, collection, distribution, conservation, and characterization of the population genetic structure of these unique germplasms for crop improvement. Comprehensive studies are ongoing to determine the taxonomic position and crossing potential of the critical mass of collected species with domesticated lettuce, L. sativa, based on: (i) select morphological and phenological characteristics; (ii) molecular data; (iii) downy mildew resistance and (iv) variation in biologically active secondary metabolite content. In this review we present an overview of our key findings and highlight the advances in knowledge on these themes. Our germplasm collections and novel results, obtained by detailed, large-scale screening of natural populations and individuals for genetic variation, will considerably advance crop breeding research and practices. In addition, we critically summarize the recent literature and findings relating to three additional WLRs: L. dregeana, L. scarioloides, and L. azerbaijanica. The main long-term purpose of our research is to facilitate broadening of the genetic variation of domesticated lettuce by using new and adaptive germplasm in interspecific hybridization of lettuce.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-26 |
| Number of pages | 26 |
| Journal | Israel Journal of Plant Sciences |
| Volume | 72 |
| Issue number | 9 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Studies described in this review were financial supported by grants from the: (i) Research Authority, University of Haifa, Israel; (ii) Israel Ministry of Science; (iii) Internal Grant Agency of Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic (IGA-PRF-2022-002; IGAPRF- 2023-001); (iv) Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports; (v) Czech Ministry of Agriculture; (vi) Poland Ministry of Science and Higher Education; (vii) USDA- ARS CRIS Project and NIFA MultiState Project; (viii) California Leafy Greens Research Board; and (ix) Ancell- Teicher Foundation for Molecular Genetics and Evolution. AB wishes to thank: (i) Some Armenian colleagues (mentioned in Beharav et al. 2015, 2018a, 2020) for their excellent organization, common identification and collection of unique wild Lettuce's germplasm in 2011 and 2019; (ii) Rijk Zwaan Breeding B.V., De Lier, The Netherlands, for providing greenhouse facilities, support in assessment and cultivation of approximately 500 sampled Lactuca accessions (see Beharav 2021, 2022; Beharav et al. 2018b, 2020), screening for resistance to six B. lactucae races (Beharav 2021), as well as providing and explanation of KASP data points (Beharav 2022); (iii) Dr. Murat Güzel, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon, Turkey, for providing the genetic distance matrixes of his study (Güzel et al 2021); (iv) Prof. Hanhui Kuang, College of Horticulture and Forestry Sciences, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, People's Republic of China, for contribution of an important paragraph that summarized results of some preliminary studies using germplasm from the IoE WLGB collections, and for initiating a new collaboration on the lateflowering genes from L. aculeata; and (v) Ms. Souad Khalifa from the IOE for her excellent technical contribution along the years. The authors declare no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
Funding Information:
Studies described in this review were financial supported by grants from the: (i) Research Authority, University of Haifa, Israel; (ii) Israel Ministry of Science; (iii) Internal Grant Agency of Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic (IGA-PRF-2022-002; IGA-PRF-2023-001); (iv) Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports; (v) Czech Ministry of Agriculture; (vi) Poland Ministry of Science and Higher Education; (vii) USDA-ARS CRIS Project and NIFA MultiState Project; (viii) California Leafy Greens Research Board; and (ix) Ancell-Teicher Foundation for Molecular Genetics and Evolution. AB wishes to thank: (i) Some Armenian colleagues (mentioned in , , ) for their excellent organization, common identification and collection of unique wild Lettuce’s germplasm in 2011 and 2019; (ii) Rijk Zwaan Breeding B.V., De Lier, The Netherlands, for providing greenhouse facilities, support in assessment and cultivation of approximately 500 sampled Lactuca accessions (see , ; , ), screening for resistance to six B. lactucae races (), as well as providing and explanation of KASP data points (); (iii) Dr. Murat Güzel, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon, Turkey, for providing the genetic distance matrixes of his study (); (iv) Prof. Hanhui Kuang, College of Horticulture and Forestry Sciences, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China, for contribution of an important paragraph that summarized results of some preliminary studies using germplasm from the IoE WLGB collections, and for initiating a new collaboration on the late-flowering genes from L. aculeata; and (v) Ms. Souad Khalifa from the IOE for her excellent technical contribution along the years. The authors declare no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Alex Beharav et al. Published with license by Koninklijke Brill NV.
Keywords
- Conservation
- crop improvement
- domestication
- gene pools
- genetic diversity
- wild Lactuca relatives (WLRs)
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
- Agronomy and Crop Science
- Plant Science