Cyanogenesis in the Sorghum Genus: From Genotype to Phenotype

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  • Max Cowan
  • Møller, Birger Lindberg
  • Sally Norton
  • Camilla Knudsen
  • Christoph Crocoll
  • Agnelo Furtado
  • Robert Henry
  • Cecilia Blomstedt
  • Roslyn M. Gleadow

Domestication has resulted in a loss of genetic diversity in our major food crops, leading to susceptibility to biotic and abiotic stresses linked with climate change. Crop wild relatives (CWR) may provide a source of novel genes potentially important for re-gaining climate resilience. Sorghum bicolor is an important cereal crop with wild relatives that are endemic to Australia. Sorghum bicolor is cyanogenic, but the cyanogenic status of wild Sorghum species is not well known. In this study, leaves of wild species endemic in Australia are screened for the presence of the cyanogenic glucoside dhurrin. The direct measurement of dhurrin content and the potential for dhurrin-derived HCN release (HCNp) showed that all the tested Australian wild species were essentially phenotypically acyanogenic. The unexpected low dhurrin content may reflect the variable and generally nutrient-poor environments in which they are growing in nature. Genome sequencing of six CWR and PCR amplification of the CYP79A1 gene from additional species showed that a high conservation of key amino acids is required for correct protein function and dhurrin synthesis, pointing to the transcriptional regulation of the cyanogenic phenotype in wild sorghum as previously shown in elite sorghum.

Original languageEnglish
Article number140
JournalGenes
Volume13
Number of pages17
ISSN2073-4425
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

    Research areas

  • Cyanogenesis, Dhurrin, Sorghum bicolor, Wild crop relatives

ID: 291357452