Genetic Characterization of Genetic Resources of <i>Aegilops tauschii</i>, Wheat D Genome Donor, Newly Collected in North Caucasia

Abstract

For the purpose of broadening the available genetic resources to improve wheat breeding and to elucidate wheat evolution, 16 accessions of Aegilops tauschii newly collected in North Caucasia named NCT accessions were characterized genetically based on morphology, chloroplast SSR variation and AFLP. Ae. tauschii is one of the most important wild wheat genetic resources because it is the progenitor of the D genome of hexaploid wheat. Since Caucasia is considered to be a center of diversity of both cultivated and wild wheat, a lot of studies have been conducted to evaluate the diversity of Caucasian genetic resources including Ae. tauschii. Such kind of analyses, however, focused on Transcaucasia but little attention has been paid to North Caucasia because of the lack of available genetic resources. Based on the molecular analyses in this study, the 16 NCT accessions were generally divided into two groups although morphologically those are classified into the same subspecies. The grouping also represented geographical distribution, that is, the northern part group and Derbent group. This division is consistent with the two major genepools in Ae. tauschii reported in previous studies. The northern part and Derbent groups correspond to Eurasian wide genepool (called Tauschii genepool) and Caucasia and Caspian coast limited genepool (Strangulata genepool), respectively. Regarding to chloroplast, all the 16 accessions were genotyped as HG7, the most major haplogroup of the species. Although all the 16 NCT accessions were categorized into ssp. tauschii morphologically, accessions of Derbent group showed a tendency to have larger spikelets. Among at almost the largest level in ssp. tauschii. The results of this study filled the missing information of Ae. tauschii and will be helpful for future utilization.

High genetic diversity in Aegilops tauschii Coss. accessions from North Iran as revealed by IRAP and REMAP markers

“…Genetic diversity of Ae. tauschii’s germplasm has been extensively studied using various molecular techniques such as allozyme [ 20 ], RFLP [ 19 ], microsatellite [ 21 – 25 ], IRAP [ 26 ], SNPs [ 3 , 27 , 28 ], AFLP [ 29 ], and gene sequences [ 30 ].…”