On December 11th, “New insights into the evolution of wheat avenin-like proteins in wild emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides)”was published on international journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America（PNAS）online .The findings were made by Prof. Sun Dongfa’s Wheat Lab in College of Plant Science &Technology of HZAU, cooperated with Murdoch University in Australia and University of Haifa in Israel.
The insights revealed that wheat grain avenin-like proteins (ALPs) have functions for dough quality and antifungal activities. A genome-wide characterization of ALP encoding genes in bread wheat was conducted. Results showed that most ALPs are transcriptionally active in developing grains and are up-regulated upon Bgt infection. The allelic diversity of ALPs in 21 natural populations of wild emmer wheat (WEW) in Israel was studied. Many ALP allelic variations in WEW were associated with regional environmental adaption. The findings demonstrated that the diversifying natural selection through climatic and edaphic factors was a major driving force for the allelic diversity of ALP genes. The results indicated that WEW harbors a high genetic diversity of ALPs utilizable for wheat improvement.
The first author is Zhang Yujuan, graduate student from Murdoch University. Sun Dongfa, professor of HZAU, Ma Wujun, professor of Murdoch university in Australia, and Eviatar Nevo, professor of Haifa university in Israel, are the co-corresponding authors of the paper.

Translated by Huang Wenyin
Supervised by Wang Xiaoyan