Shrink, remove and modify: Team successfully 'trims' wheat chromosomes
Apr 17, 2026
For the first time, a research team at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) has succeeded in reducing the size of, or even completely removing, chromosomes in plants with large genomes, such as wheat. They achieved this by using the CRISPR/Cas gene-editing tool to ta
rget highly repetitive sections of DNA. The results of the study, published today in the journal Plant Communications, could significantly accelerate breeding processes. ...read more read less