| External Collaborators / Partners | Hop Products Australia, Horticulture Australia Limited |
|---|---|
| UTAS Collaborators | School of Plant Science |
| Funding Source | Hop Products Australia, Horticulture Australia Limited |
| Project Status | Current |
The cones of female hop are important to the brewing industry, as they contain the resins and essential oils that impart bitterness and aroma to beer. The hop plant also possesses a number of unique chemicals that have the potential to be developed into phytoceuticals. Our research is focussed on understanding the biology of hop to better inform hop breeding and to assist the Australian hop industry in the development of superior hop varieties.
The Australian hop breeding programme relies on the development of polyploids. Although triploid hops are nominally sterile, they can produce seedlings with ploidy levels ranging from diploid to hexaploid. These sexually derived polyploids permit significant changes at the genome level and have the potential of short-cutting traditional breeding. In collaboration with Hop Products Australia we investigate ways in improving hop for the brewing and emerging industries, including:
(i) efficient in vitro tetraploid induction and high-throughput ploidy evaluation by flow cytometry;
(ii) understanding the natural variation in hop chemical characteristics; and
(iii) development of Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT) molecular markers via an international consortium of hop researchers lead by the University of Tasmania.
Future potential work with DArT markers includes:
(1) use in quality control (varietal identification);
(2) providing insight into the genes controlling biosynthesis of important hop chemicals such as bitter-acids (alpha and beta), phyto-estrogens, xanthohumol and essential oils; and
(3) providing the basis on which to identify marker-trait associations with a view to developing marker assisted selection in hop breeding.
Howard EL, Whittock S, Jakse J, Carling J, Matthews PD, Probasco G, Henning JA, Darby P, Cerenak A, Javornik B, Kilian A, Koutoulis A (2011) High-throughput genotyping of hop (Humulus lupulus L.) utilising diversity arrays technology (DArT). Theoretical and Applied Genetics 122: 1265-1280.
Whittock S, Leggett G, Jakse J, Javornik B, Carling J, Kilian A, Matthews PD, Probasco G, Henning JA, Darby P, Cerenak A, Koutoulis A (2009) Use of Diversity Array Technology (DArT) for genotyping of Humulus lupulus L.. Acta Horticulturae 848: 59-63.
Shellie RA, Poynter SDH, Li J, Gathercole JL, Whittock SP, Koutoulis A (2009) Varietal characterisation of hop (Humulus lupulus L.) by gas chromatography – mass spectrometry analysis of hop cone extracts. Journal of Separation Science 32: 3720-3725.
Castro CB, Whittock LD, Whittock SP, Leggett G, Koutoulis A (2008) DNA sequence and expression variation of hop (Humulus lupulus L.) valerophenone synthase (VPS), a key gene in bitter acid biosynthesis. Annals of Botany 102: 265-273.
Koutoulis A, Roy AT, Price A, Sheriff L, Leggett G (2005) DNA ploidy level of colchicine-treated hops (Humulus lupulus L.). Scientia Horticulturae 105: 263-268.
Koutoulis A, Price A, Leggett G (2005) Polyploid breeding and mutagenesis in hop (Humulus lupulus L.). Acta Horticulturae 668: 41-46.
Roy AT, Leggett G, Koutoulis A (2001) In vitro tetraploid induction and generation of tetraploids from mixoploids in hop (Humulus lupulus L.) Plant Cell Reports 20: 489-495.
Members (External)
Associate Professor Anthony Koutoulis, School of Plant Science, University of Tasmania, Anthony.Koutoulis@utas.edu.au
Dr Simon Whittock, Hop Products Australia, Simon.Whittock@hops.com.au
Ms Aina Price, School of Plant Science, University of Tasmania, Aina.Price@utas.edu.au
Ms Erin Howard, School of Plant Science, University of Tasmania, elhoward@utas.edu.au