Be fruitful and multiply: gene amplification inducing pathogen resistance

The majority of European spring barley cultivars have broad-spectrum powdery mildew resistance conditioned by a naturally occurring recessive resistance allele at the Mlo locus that originates from Ethiopian landraces. A recent publication by Pietro Piffanelli et al. describes an unusual amplification of gene segments upstream of the Mlo promoter that probably interferes with transcription and is responsible for gene inactivation. Their findings provide insights into the breeding events during the domestication of wild barley.