The third term of the National BioResource Project-Wheat, Japan: The first year
Shuhei Nasuda
Laboratory of Plant Genetics, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Japan
Corresponding author: Shuhei Nasuda
E-mail: nasushu@kais.kyoto-u.ac.jp
The National Bioresource Project-Wheat (NBRP-Wheat) was launched by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan in 2002 with the aim of maintenance and distribution of seed stocks and DNA clones of wheat. Additionally to its primary roles in collecting, maintaining, and distributing valuable genetic resources, the second-term NBRP-Wheat (2007-2012) featured the collection and characterization of DNA markers.
During the two terms, we have successfully built up a system to maintain the wheat genetic resources under the leadership of Dr. Takashi R. Endo. Our seed collection has around 13,000 accessions. Thanks to Dr. Ogihra’s continuous and comprehensive analyses, we have the largest cDNA libraries (1.3 million clones) of wheat in the world. The registered genetic resources are distributed to the users upon request through our database KOMUGI (http://www.shigen.nig.ac.jp/wheat/komugi/top/top.jsp).
The seed stocks of the NBRP-Wheat are being examined for morphological and genomic characters before seed propagation and conservation. NBRP-Wheat is in charge of wheat (genus Triticum and genus Aegilops) and other related species, rye (genus Secale) and small number of the related species in the tribe Triticeae as references. NBRP-Wheat was originally assigned to a core group consisting of the Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University (Laboratory of Plant Genetics and Laboratory of Crop Evolution, whose Collection Code is LPGKU and KU, respectively), Kihara Institute for Biological Research, Yokohama City University (Collection Code: KT), and the Faculty of Agriculture, Tottori University (Collection Code: TACBOW). The TACBOW stocks are now maintained and distributed from Kyoto University. DNA clones are maintained by the Kihara Institute for Biological Research, Yokohama City University. Collectively, we form a network to maintain and distribute the wheat genetic resources that had been stored by individual researches in Japan.
In the second stage of NBRP-Wheat (2007-2012), in addition to maintain and to distribute the genetic stocks, we aimed to collect polymorphic DNA markers that would be useful in genetic studies and wheat breeding. The fruit of the DNA marker project is publically accessible at the KOMUGI database.
At the beginning of the third term (2013-2018), some changes in organization of NBRP-Wheat were made. Namely, we refreshed the member of the steering committee that is formed by leading wheat researchers in Japan to support the activities of the core-facilities (Kyoto University and Yokohama City University). The members of the core-facilities were stepped down from the steering committee to keep the committee’s independence. The office of NBRP-Wheat is virtually established in Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University that functions as management center of the NBRP-Wheat; the tasks are distribution of seed stocks, preparation of documents, arrangements of biannual meetings of the steering committee. And finally, I take the responsibility as the project manager.
The third term of NBRP-Wheat is planned to continue until 2017 to achieve the best collection of wheat genetic stocks in the world. We will establish core-collections of our hexaploid, tetraploid and diploid wheat species. We will modernize the seed storage system in preparation to retirement of Drs. Takashi R. Endo and Taihachi Kawahara who have been enthusiastically maintained the genetic and diversity resources, respectively. It is my sincerest wish to go through this difficult period with the help from world-wide wheat researchers, to be one of the best genetic resource centers of wheat, and to pass the genetic resources to the next generation. Bon voyage!