Summary• To understand key mechanisms leading to stabilized allopolyploid species, we characterized the meiotic behaviour of wheat allohexaploids in relation to structural and genetic changes.• For that purpose, we analysed first generations of synthetic allohexaploids obtained through interspecific hybridization, followed by spontaneous chromosome doubling, between several genotypes of Triticum turgidum and Aegilops tauschii wheat species, donors of AB and D genomes, respectively.• As expected for these Ph1 (Pairing homoeologous 1) gene-carrying allopolyploids, chromosome pairing at metaphase I of meiosis essentially occurs between homologous chromosomes. However, the different synthetic allohexaploids exhibited progenitor-dependent meiotic irregularities, such as incomplete homologous pairing, resulting in univalent formation and leading to aneuploidy in the subsequent generation.• Stability of the synthetic allohexaploids was shown to depend on the considered genotypes of both AB and D genome progenitors, where few combinations compare to the natural wheat allohexaploid in terms of regularity of meiosis and euploidy. Aneuploidy represents the only structural change observed in these synthetic allohexaploids, as no apparent DNA sequence elimination or rearrangement was observed when analysing euploid plants with molecular markers, developed from expressed sequence tags (ESTs) as well as simple sequence repeat (SSR) and transposable element sequences.
Summary
The present study aims to understand regulation of gene expression in synthetic and natural wheat (Triticum aestivum) allohexaploids, that combines the AB genome of Triticum turgidum and the D genome of Aegilops tauschii; and which we have recently characterized as genetically stable.
We conducted a comprehensive genome‐wide analysis of gene expression that allowed characterization of the effect of variability of the D genome progenitor, the intergenerational stability as well as the comparison with natural wheat allohexaploid. We used the Affymetrix GeneChip Wheat Genome Array, on which 55 049 transcripts are represented.
Additive expression was shown to represent the majority of expression regulation in the synthetic allohexaploids, where expression for more than c. 93% of transcripts was equal to the mid‐parent value measured from a mixture of parental RNA. This leaves c. 2000 (c. 7%) transcripts, in which expression was nonadditive. No global gene expression bias or dominance towards any of the progenitor genomes was observed whereas high intergenerational stability and low effect of the D genome progenitor variability were revealed.
Our study suggests that gene expression regulation in wheat allohexaploids is established early upon allohexaploidization and highly conserved over generations, as demonstrated by the high similarity of expression with natural wheat allohexaploids.
The hybrid Brassica napus × B. nigra was produced and backcrossed three times to rapeseed. BC3 genotypes with one or two additional chromosomes were either selfed or haplodiploidized by using anther culture followed by colchicine doubling. Thirty-four fertile disomic addition lines have so far been obtained. Meiotic pairing in most of them was close to 20 II at metaphase I of meiosis. Their characterization is in progress. This material obtained for the first time in B. napus should be of great interest in the study of genome structure and basic chromosome number in Brassica species.Key words: Brassica, genome, disomic addition lines, meiotic behaviour.
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