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Presenter

Andy (Yi) Chen, John Innes Centre, UK

Outline

Grain and spike development are two important developmental processes in wheat that can influence final grain yield. To better understand these two processes, we investigated the genetic basis of wheat subspecie and mutants that have different grain or spike morphology compared to cultivated wheat. The wheat subspecie Triticum ispahanicum (n = 14) have a major QTL, P2, on chromosome 6A. P2 increases the length of glume, maternal floral organs and grain. By using combination of positional-based cloning and gene editing, we discovered that T. ispahanicum has a unique 482-bp promoter deletion on the gene SHORT VEGETATIVE PHASE-A1 (SVP-A1) which is sufficient to increase glume and grain length. EMS line ANK-15 and the Japanese landrace Nakate Gumbai have compact spike. To understand the genetic basis of spike development, we performed F2 mapping and identified a QTL on chromosome 5D. We performed RNA-seq using near-isogenic lines and identified a set of candidate genes that can influence spike development.

Reference

• Chen, Y., Liu, Y., Zhang, J. et al. The Triticum ispahanicum elongated glume locus P2 maps to chromosome 6A and is associated with the ectopic expression of SVP-A1. Theor Appl Genet 135, 2313–2331 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-022-04114-y

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