We'd love to hear any comments/questions/feedback on this work!
Many thanks to BBSRC @ukri.org, @nrpdtp.bsky.social, @dsw-isp.bsky.social & @bric-isp.bsky.social for funding
8/8

Instead, passive compensation could explain the high levels of functional redundancy - in this case, half (in tetraploid) or two-thirds (in hexaploid) of the WT levels of functional transcript are sufficient to maintain the WT phenotype
7/8

However, the PHS1 homoeolog group also showed no transcriptional compensation - PHS1-B1 transcripts were not increased in the phs1-a1 mutant and vice versa
This suggests that transcriptional compensation between homoeologs is not required for functional redundancy in wheat
6/8

Lastly, we checked whether transcriptional compensation could explain redundancy between previously characterised homoeologs
For this, we selected the PHS1 homoeolog group, shown to be redundant by Kamble et al. - doi.org/10.1093/plce...
5/8

We repeated this analysis in tetraploid wheat, where a loss-of-function mutation in one homoeolog will result in a 50% decrease in functional transcript (compared to a 33% decrease in hexaploid wheat)
Similarly, the vast majority of homoeolog groups didn't show transcriptional compensation
4/8

Overall, we identified only very low levels of potential transcriptional compensation between homoeologs - generally, the non-mutated homoeologs did not change in expression relative to the WT
3/8

To answer this question, we performed RNA-seq on hexaploid EMS-mutagenised lines and identified homoeolog groups in which one homoeolog is affected by a premature termination codon (PTC) mutation
For these groups, we compared the homoeolog expression levels between the mutagenised line and WT
2/8

We asked whether mutations in single genes are compensated by transcriptional up-regulation of their homoeologs, given that mutations in multiple homoeologs are often required to produce a mutant phenotype in wheat (i.e. the homoeologs are redundant)
1/8

Thank you!

@johninnescentre.bsky.social @bric-isp.bsky.social @dsw-isp.bsky.social

It was great to work on this project together with Sam Burrows and @philippaborrill.bsky.social, as well as having vital contributions from Joe Crudgington, Giorgia di Santolo, James Simmonds and Marco Catoni