FIND-IT: Accelerated trait development for a green evolution

• Published in: Science advances Vol. 8; no. 34; p. eabq2266
• Main Authors: Knudsen, Søren, Wendt, Toni, Dockter, Christoph, Thomsen, Hanne Cecilie, Rasmussen, Magnus, Egevang Jørgensen, Morten, Lu, Qiongxian, Voss, Cynthia, Murozuka, Emiko, Østerberg, Jeppe Thulin, Harholt, Jesper, Braumann, Ilka, Cuesta-Seijo, Jose A, Kale, Sandip M, Bodevin, Sabrina, Tang Petersen, Lise, Carciofi, Massimiliano, Pedas, Pai Rosager, Opstrup Husum, Jeppe, Nielsen, Martin Toft Simmelsgaard, Nielsen, Kasper, Jensen, Mikkel K, Møller, Lillian Ambus, Gojkovic, Zoran, Striebeck, Alexander, Lengeler, Klaus, Fennessy, Ross T, Katz, Michael, Garcia Sanchez, Rosa, Solodovnikova, Natalia, Förster, Jochen, Olsen, Ole, Møller, Birger Lindberg, Fincher, Geoffrey B, Skadhauge, Birgitte
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Association for the Advancement of Science 26-08-2022
• Subjects: Agriculture; Biomedicine and Life Sciences; Plant Sciences; Research Resource; SciAdv r-resources
• ISSN: 2375-2548; 2375-2548
• DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abq2266

Improved agricultural and industrial production organisms are required to meet the future global food demands and minimize the effects of climate change. A new resource for crop and microbe improvement, designated FIND-IT (Fast Identification of Nucleotide variants by droplet DigITal PCR), provides ultrafast identification and isolation of predetermined, targeted genetic variants in a screening cycle of less than 10 days. Using large-scale sample pooling in combination with droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) greatly increases the size of low-mutation density and screenable variant libraries and the probability of identifying the variant of interest. The method is validated by screening variant libraries totaling 500,000 barley (
) individuals and isolating more than 125 targeted barley gene knockout lines and miRNA or promoter variants enabling functional gene analysis. FIND-IT variants are directly applicable to elite breeding pipelines and minimize time-consuming technical steps to accelerate the evolution of germplasm.