Growing more and better food Increasing human populations demand more productive agriculture, which in turn relies on crop plants adjusted for high-yield systems. Eshed and Lippman review how genetic tuning of the signaling systems that regulate flowering and plant architecture can be applied to crops. Crops that flower sooner might be adaptable to regions with shorter growing seasons, and compact plant shapes might facilitate agricultural management. The universality of these plant hormone systems facilitates application to a range of crops, from the orphan crop teff to the well-known wheat. Science, this issue p. eaax0025 BACKGROUND Among tens of thousands edible plants, several hundred are cultivated throughout the world, but fewer than a dozen comprise the majority of consumed calories. The adaptation to cultivation and further improvement of these crops rely on many changes in plant genomes that are continuously selected by breeders to meet the ever-increasing dietary needs of both humans and their livestock. Although many species-specific genetic and trait modifications helped to elevate the major crops above others to feed the world, the majority of both major and minor crops share a history of a few common modifications to plant physiology and growth that sparked agricultural revolutions. These include the quantitative tuning of flowering signals with direct influences on shoot architecture and productivity, the adoption of shorter-stature plants with more balanced growth in fields treated with chemical fertilizers, and the introduction of hybrid seeds to enhance growth and yield and simplify the combining of disease-resistance genes in hybrid crops. ADVANCES Two hormonal systems are at the core of the most successful and reoccurring agricultural revolutions: the flower-promoting protein florigen and its antagonist antiflorigen and the growth-stimulating small molecule gibberellin (GA) and its target for degradation, the growth repressor DELLA. The central components of these hormonal systems govern growth among plant organs. Mutations in the founding antiflorigen gene SELF-PRUNING in tomato and its homologs in other crops such as soybean and cotton confer precocious termination of shoots, transforming tall, vine-like plants into compact bushes better suited for large-scale mechanical harvesting. Similarly, a reduction in GA signals converted wheat and rice into shorter-stature crops, which enabled the Green Revolution. However, all these changes were founded on serendipitous discovery of a few alleles, and the narrow genetic basis for these trait modifications demanded further tuning with species-specific quantitative modifiers for the revolutions to be realized. Tools for genome editing can now rapidly generate a wide range of novel alleles and associated quantitative variation that can be selected to fit specific genotypic background or environmental needs. Transferring beneficial classical alleles into new backgrounds through crosses is time consuming and risks also bringing in negative phenotypic effects from linked chromosomal segments. Generation of a novel allele in the desired background can circumvent those problems. Traits regulating GA and florigen are often shared across plant species, whereas traits such as those that control shattering of seeds and pods are regulated in a species-specific manner. We argue that the core hormone systems, including GA and florigen, offer higher chances than other targets to rapidly generate new beneficial variation to improve old crops and enhance the productivity, adaptation, and adoption of many underutilized crops. OUTLOOK Rapid and large-scale environmental and social changes require concomitant rapid and large changes in productivity and diversity of our crops. Adaptation of classical crops to new environments would require retuning of their flowering and shoot systems. Shifting human consumption from environmentally draining animal-based foods to a more plant-based diet will require more high-protein crops. We argue that in the short term, more legumes such as beans are the best option, and in such plants targeted changes in antiflorigen genes were and will continue to be key for large-scale production. Adoption of additional underutilized crops with enhanced abiotic resilience and added nutritional benefits would be expedited by targeted manipulations of the genetic systems that were previously exploited for other crops: flowering, stature, and hybrid seeds. To make the most of these systems in a broad range of crops, the technologies that allow genetic manipulation in all of these plants must be a focus of future research. The revolution of the protein-rich soybean. Soybeans (left panel) in the wild are tall, vining plants (middle panel, left). Compatibility for agriculture benefited from a compact, bush-like growth habit (middle panel, right) caused by a flowering and shoot architecture mutation. Large-scale production of soybeans (right panel) serves as an example of how genome editing can generate similar modifications in other protein-rich legumes. Photos courtesy of J.-D. Lee (middle panel) and the United Soybean Board (left and right panels). The dominance of the major crops that feed humans and their livestock arose from agricultural revolutions that increased productivity and adapted plants to large-scale farming practices. Two hormone systems that universally control flowering and plant architecture, florigen and gibberellin, were the source of multiple revolutions that modified reproductive transitions and proportional growth among plant parts. Although step changes based on serendipitous mutations in these hormone systems laid the foundation, genetic and agronomic tuning were required for broad agricultural benefits. We propose that generating targeted genetic variation in core components of both systems would elicit a wider range of phenotypic variation. Incorporating this enhanced diversity into breeding programs of conventional and underutilized crops could help to meet the future needs of the human diet and promote sustainable agriculture.

中文翻译：

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农业革命为新老作物的有针对性育种指明了方向

种植更多更好的食物 不断增加的人口需要更高产的农业，而这反过来又依赖于为高产系统进行调整的作物。Eshed 和 Lippman 回顾了如何将调节开花和植物结构的信号系统的遗传调整应用于作物。开花较早的作物可能更适合生长季节较短的地区，而紧凑的植物形状可能有助于农业管理。这些植物激素系统的普遍性有助于应用于一系列作物，从孤儿作物画眉草到众所周知的小麦。科学，这个问题 p。eaax0025 背景 在数以万计的可食用植物中，世界各地种植了数百种植物，但占消耗卡路里的大部分是不到 12 种。这些作物的适应和进一步改良依赖于植物基因组的许多变化，育种者不断选择这些变化以满足人类及其牲畜不断增长的饮食需求。尽管许多特定物种的遗传和性状修饰有助于将主要作物提升到其他作物之上，以养活世界，但大多数主要作物和次要作物都有一些共同改变植物生理和生长的历史，从而引发了农业革命。其中包括对开花信号的定量调整，直接影响枝条结构和生产力，采用化肥处理的田地中生长更均衡的矮小植物，引入杂交种子以提高生长和产量，并简化杂交作物中抗病基因的组合。进展 两个激素系统是最成功和反复发生的农业革命的核心：促花蛋白成花素及其拮抗剂抗成花素和促生长小分子赤霉素 (GA) 及其降解靶点，即生长抑制剂 DELLA。这些激素系统的核心成分控制着植物器官的生长。番茄中的创始抗花基因 SELF-PRUNING 及其在大豆和棉花等其他作物中的同源基因发生突变，导致芽的早熟终止，将高大的藤蔓状植物转化为更适合大规模机械收获的紧凑灌木。相似地，GA 信号的减少将小麦和水稻转化为矮小作物，从而促成了绿色革命。然而，所有这些变化都是建立在几个等位基因的偶然发现上的，而这些性状修饰的狭窄遗传基础需要进一步调整物种特异性的数量修饰符才能实现革命。基因组编辑工具现在可以快速生成范围广泛的新等位基因和相关的定量变异，可以选择这些变异来适应特定的基因型背景或环境需求。通过杂交将有益的经典等位基因转移到新的背景中是耗时的，而且还存在从连锁染色体片段中带来负面表型效应的风险。在所需背景中生成新的等位基因可以解决这些问题。调节 GA 和成花素的性状通常在植物物种之间共享，而控制种子和豆荚破碎的性状则以物种特异性方式进行调节。我们认为，核心激素系统（包括 GA 和 florigen）提供比其他目标更高的机会来快速产生新的有益变异，以改善旧作物并提高许多未充分利用作物的生产力、适应和采用。展望 快速和大规模的环境和社会变化需要我们作物的生产力和多样性随之发生快速和巨大的变化。传统作物对新环境的适应需要重新调整它们的开花和枝条系统。将人类消费从消耗环境的动物性食物转变为更加植物性的饮食将需要更多的高蛋白作物。我们认为，在短期内，更多豆类（例如豆类）是最佳选择，并且在此类植物中，抗花素基因的有针对性的变化曾经并将继续是大规模生产的关键。通过对以前用于其他作物的遗传系统进行有针对性的操作，可以加速采用其他未充分利用的作物，这些作物具有增强的非生物复原力和更多的营养益处：开花、高大和杂交种子。为了在广泛的作物中充分利用这些系统，在所有这些植物中进行基因操作的技术必须成为未来研究的重点。富含蛋白质的大豆的革命。野生大豆（左图）是高大的藤本植物（中图，左图）。农业的兼容性得益于紧凑的灌木状生长习性（中间面板，右）由开花和枝条结构突变引起。大豆的大规模生产（右图）是基因组编辑如何在其他富含蛋白质的豆类中产生类似修饰的一个例子。照片由 J.-D 提供。Lee（中图）和 United Soybean Board（左图和右图）。为人类及其牲畜提供食物的主要农作物的主导地位源于农业革命，农业革命提高了生产力并使植物适应大规模农业实践。两种普遍控制开花和植物结构的激素系统，成花素和赤霉素，是多次革命的源泉，这些革命改变了植物部分之间的生殖转变和比例生长。尽管基于这些激素系统中偶然突变的阶跃变化奠定了基础，广泛的农业利益需要遗传和农艺调整。我们建议在两个系统的核心组件中产生有针对性的遗传变异将引发更广泛的表型变异。将这种增强的多样性纳入常规和未充分利用作物的育种计划，有助于满足人类饮食的未来需求并促进可持续农业。