Objective Agriculture depends on breeding. Breeders try to combining desirable and eliminating unfavourable traits of crop plants. Changes in genetic linkage are based on meiotic recombination. Although techniques for the transfer of single traits have been developed, resulting in genetically modified organisms (GMOs), hardly any effort has been undertaken to control the exchange between parental genomes as such. By applying new molecular tools to control recombination the current project aims to establish a new kind of ¿designed¿ plant breeding. Thus, not only transfer or elimination of specific traits should become possible in a programmable way, but also the access to the complete gene pool of natural species and its widening by crossing in closely related species should become feasible. Suppression of recombination should result in an apomixis-like propagation of elite cultivars. Mainly two different levels of control will be addressed in the project: the induction of recombination at predefined specific sites in the genome and the regulation of the level of genome-wide exchange. For the former approach we will apply specifically tailored sequence-specific zinc-finger and meganucleases. Global changes should be achieved by modulating the expression of factors involved in the resolution of recombination intermediates. As the strategy relies on the exploitation of the natural mechanism of recombination, biotechnologically improved plants without transgenes will be obtained after outcrossing. Thus, public concerns raised by GMOs brought out in the field should be avoided. As recent technical improvements make the elucidation of genomic sequences possible at moderate cost and time requirements, the setup of ¿designed¿ breeding should become especially useful in the near future. Fields of science agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagricultureagronomyplant breedingnatural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticshereditynatural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsgenomes Programme(s) FP7-IDEAS-ERC - Specific programme: "Ideas" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) Topic(s) ERC-AG-LS9 - ERC Advanced Grant - Applied life sciences and biotechnology Call for proposal ERC-2010-AdG_20100317 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-AG - ERC Advanced Grant Coordinator KARLSRUHER INSTITUT FUER TECHNOLOGIE Address Kaiserstrasse 12 76131 Karlsruhe Germany See on map Region Baden-Württemberg Karlsruhe Karlsruhe, Stadtkreis Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Principal investigator Holger Alexander Puchta (Prof.) Administrative Contact Berndt Kronimus (Dr.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window EU contribution No data Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all KARLSRUHER INSTITUT FUER TECHNOLOGIE Germany EU contribution € 2 493 000,00 Address Kaiserstrasse 12 76131 Karlsruhe See on map Region Baden-Württemberg Karlsruhe Karlsruhe, Stadtkreis Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Principal investigator Holger Alexander Puchta (Prof.) Administrative Contact Berndt Kronimus (Dr.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Other funding No data
