Crop wild relative was Nikolai Vavilov, the Russian botanist who first realized the importance of crop wild relatives in the early 20th century. Genetic material from CWRs has been utilized by humans for thousands of years to improve the quality and yield of crops. Farmers have used traditional breeding methods for millennia, wild maize ("Zea mexicana") is routinely grown alongside maize to promote natural crossing and improve yields. More recently, plant breeders have utilised CWR genes to improve a wide range of crops like rice ("Oryza sativa"), tomato ("Solanum lycopersicum") and grain legumes. CWRs have contributed many useful genes to crop plants, and
12-oxophytodienoate reductase 12-oxophytodienoate reductase 12-oxophytodienoate reductase (OPRs) is an enzyme of the family of Old Yellow Enzymes (OYE). OPRs are grouped into two groups: OPRI and OPRII – the second group is the focus of this article, as the function of the first group is unknown, but is the subject of current research. The OPR enzyme utilizes the cofactor flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and catalyzes the following reaction in the jasmonic acid synthesis pathway: This reaction occurs in peroxisomes in plants. Several isozymes have been discovered, with varying substrate stereospecificity: three in "Lycopersicon esculentum", 13 in "Oryza sativa", and five in "Arabidopsis thaliana".