Research is directed in studying the complex regulatory process that controls their steady-state levels, as well as appreciation of the molecular structural folding of storage proteins, the ultimate recipients of the amino acid building blocks. These efforts are directed to improving the quality of plant products by novel means. Realizing that the production of hybrid varieties has enabled massive yield expansion in many species, Moshe Feldman's group has recently developed a naturally modified wheat genome that facilitates hybrid wheat production. Wild germplasm contains untapped useful genes that can be hybridized into the cultivated wheat. Moshe Feldman's group produced special lines facilitating the identification and mapping of useful qualitative and quantitative genes in wild wheat and transfer them to cultivated background.
Bread wheat is a polyploid organism.
Recently it was found by Moshe Feldman and Avi Levy that polyploidy induce rapid genomic changes affecting non-coding as well as coding sequences. The mechanism involved in bringing about these changes as well as the biological significance are currently under investigation. Coping with the environment has both short and long-range implications. It has long been appreciated that even the basic plant genome architecture, which dictates the most fundamental aspect of plant biology is fluid and tends to change as a result of stress. Avraham Levy has developed tools to examine this fluidity as described by mobile transposable elements.