Focus on plant genetics while commemorating the 200th anniversary of Gregor Mendel's birth

Focus on plant genetics: Celebrating Gregor Mendel’s 200th birth anniversary

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Due to his meticulous research on the common garden pea (Pisum sativum), from which he deduced the fundamental laws of inheritance, Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) is regarded as the father of genetics. Long before we understood the structure of DNA and the genes that make up Mendel's inheritance "factors," he developed his insights. This year, scientific journals, societies, and research institutes around the world are commemorating the 200th anniversary of Mendel's birth with special issues, conferences, seminars, fetes, and other events. In Brno, Czech Republic (the location of St. Thomas's Abbey, where Mendel conducted his research), many exciting events are scheduled, including a highly anticipated international genetics conference (https://mendel.brno.cz/). The Gregor Mendel Institute of Plant Molecular Biology in Vienna, Austria, is honoring Mendel in novel ways (https://gregorymendel200.org/), including documenting the arrival of a 7-meter-tall pea seed at a symposium held at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna. We chose to honor Mendel's birthday and his accomplishments, as well as recent advances in plant genetics, by inviting several of the world's foremost plant geneticists to contribute to this special issue.

Prior to conducting his famous crossing experiments, Ortrun Mittelsten Scheid (Mittelsten Scheid, 2022) provides a perspective on Mendel's work that emphasizes Mendel's extensive preparation and thoughtful experimental design. This is unquestionably excellent advice for students and researchers of all ages and fields! The following section by Frédéric Berger (Berger 2022) is a stimulating exercise in imagining which research field Mendel might pursue in the twenty-first century. Berger links Mendel's 19th-century masterpiece to modern plant molecular biology and provides a perspective that balances Mendel's neglected and misunderstood later work on Hieracium with his renowned Pisum experiments. James Birchler and Hua Yang (Birchler and Yang, 2022) conclude this collection of perspective articles by discussing the multiple fates of gene duplications: deletion, hypofunctionalization, subfunctionalization, neofunctionalization, dosage balance constraints, and neutral variation.

Following the three perspectives are six in-depth review articles. Martin Lysak (Lysak, 2022) provides a fascinating treatise on end-to-end and nested chromosomal fusions, describing how these processes likely played a significant role in the evolution of eukaryotic genomes. In addition to Mendel, he acknowledges the seminal contributions of Barbara McClintock and Cyril Darlington in this field. Mendel's ideas greatly influenced their own pioneering work.

Eugene Shakirov, Julian Chen, and Dorothy Shippen (Shakirov et al., 2022) examine recent advancements in plant telomere biology and discuss how "lessons learned from plants 2|Page

continue to push the boundaries of science, revealing detailed molecular mechanisms in telomere biology with broad implications for human health, aging biology, and stress." Annis Richardson and Sarah Hake (Richardson and Hake 2022) discuss the classic morphological mutants of maize, their significance in the history of genetics, and their fundamental role in our understanding of plant development. Richardson and Hake assert that Mendel was arguably the first maize geneticist, as he conducted experiments with maize to test the inheritance laws deduced from his work with garden peas (reviewed by Rhoades, 1984).

Elizabeth (Toby) Kellogg (Kellogg, 2022) provides a wonderful synthesis of the genetic control of inflorescence architecture in grasses, summarizing what is known about gene regulation and presenting intriguing hypotheses about the control of meristem identity. Hokuto Nakayama, Aaron Leichty, and Neelima Sinha (Nakayama et al., 2022) review our current understanding of leaf developmental genetics and the diversity of leaf forms, with an emphasis on natural variation and conserved gene regulatory networks. Finally, Avraham Levy and Moshe Feldman (Levy and Feldman, 2022) offer a comprehensive review of the intricate evolution and origin of bread wheat. They argue convincingly that an understanding of its origin and evolutionary paths will facilitate the "use and conservation of the vast gene pool of wheat biodiversity, upon which our food security depends."

We do not know what Gregor Mendel would study in the 21st century; however, we do know that his painstaking analyses of seven carefully selected traits (see Figure) assessed in approximately 28,000 pea plants over a decade (Mendel, 1866) allowed him to discover the fundamental laws of inheritance still taught to genetics students today. We celebrate the 200th anniversary of Gregor Mendel's birth by extending our gratitude to all of the contributors to this special issue and to the anonymous reviewers who helped improve the articles.

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References: Berger F (2022) Which field of research would Gregor Mendel choose in the 21st century?

Plant Cell 34: 2462--2465 Google Scholar Birchler JA, Yang H (2022) The multiple fates of gene duplications: deletion, hypofunctionalization, subfunctionalization, neofunctionalization, dosage balance constraints, and neutral variation. Plant Cell 34: 2466--2474 Google Scholar Kellogg EA (2022) Genetic control of branching patterns in grass inflorescences. Plant Cell 34: 2518--2533 Google Scholar Levy A, Feldman M (2022) Evolution and origin of bread wheat. Plant Cell 34: 2549--2567 Google Scholar Lysak M (2022) Celebrating Mendel, McClintock, and Darlington: on end-to-end chromosome fusions and nested chromosome fusions. Plant Cell 34: 2475--2491 Google Scholar Mendel G (1866) Versuch über Pflanzen-Hybriden. Verhandlungen des Naturforschenden Vereinnes in Brünn 4: 3–47 Google Scholar Mittelsten Scheid O (2022) Mendelian and non-Mendelian genetics in model plants. Plant Cell 34: 2455--2461 Google Scholar Nakayama H, Leichty A, Sinha N (2022). Molecular mechanisms underlying leaf development, morphological diversification, and beyond. Plant Cell 34: 2534--2548 Google Scholar Rhoades MM (1984) The early years of maize genetics. Annu Rev Genet 18: 1–30 Google ScholarCrossrefPubMed Richardson AE, Hake S (2022) The power of classic maize mutants: driving forward our fundamental understanding of plants. Plant Cell 34: 2505--2517 Google Scholar Shakirov EV, Chen JJL, Shippen DE (2022) Plant telomere biology: the green solution to the end-replication problem. Plant Cell 34: 2492--2504 Google Scholar

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