Since the publication of the initial Chinese Spring survey sequence in 2014, the amount and quality of genomic resources has increased to the point where manual analyses are impractical and unfeasible. We have cooperated in the development of bioinformatic resources to streamline research relevant to wheat breeding and related biology. Firstly, to explore gene expression of candidate genes of interest we have developed expVIP available at www.wheat-expression com. Expression data was collected from over 1,000 publicly available RNA-Seq samples and integrated so they can be visualized simultaneously to enable comparison across studies. The set of genes to study can be selected from a region within a QTL, a network of co-expressed genes, or based on any user defined list. This now allows researchers and molecular breeders to know when and where any gene of interest is expressed in wheat plants by leveraging those ~1,000 RNA-Seq datasets.

The expression data for a wheat development study can also be queried in the eFP browser

(http://bar.utoronto.ca/efp_wheat). To enable candidate gene characterisation, we collaborated to exome-sequence TILLING mutants in tetraploid and hexaploid wheat. All mutants are publicly available and over 6,000 mutants have been distributed worldwide. The mutations have now been re-mapped onto the Chinese Spring RefSeq genome and are available through http://plants.ensembl.org. We have also skim-sequenced gamma-ray deletion lines and will present an update on these results and how to access the data and germplasm. Finally, to facilitate genotyping of TILLING mutants and other populations we developed PolyMarker, a pipeline to design genome-specific primers in a timely and effective manner. Over nine million assays have been designed to date from public datasets and over 6,000 requests for private primers have been processed in the PolyMarker website. We have updated this resource with the RefSeq genome and have introduced new features. As wheat genetics and genomics moves beyond the reference genome, we envisage increased interest from scientist who have not previously worked on polyploid wheat. We therefore developed the www.wheat-training.com website which features simple tutorials to help navigate the multiple genomic and genetic resources in wheat and provide background information into general wheat techniques, such as growing and crossing plants. We are currently linking these resources to the International Wheat Information System (http://wheatis.org) to further facilitate connections across platforms. These resources are accelerating gene characterization, which will accelerate research and ultimately help breeding programs to improve and adapt wheat.