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Updated: Jun 26, 2025

Manipulation of Ploidy in Caenorhabditis elegans
Published on: March 15, 2018
Harnessing clonal gametes in hybrid crops to engineer polyploid genomes
Yazhong Wang1, Roven Rommel Fuentes1, Willem M J van Rengs1
1Department of Chromosome Biology, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, Germany.
Abstract:
Heterosis boosts crop yield; however, harnessing additional progressive heterosis in polyploids is challenging for breeders. We bioengineered a 'mitosis instead of meiosis' (MiMe) system that generates unreduced, clonal gametes in three hybrid tomato genotypes and used it to establish polyploid genome design. Through the hybridization of MiMe hybrids, we generated '4-haplotype' plants that encompassed the complete genetics of their four inbred grandparents, providing a blueprint for exploiting polyploidy in crops.
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