Alleles of the GRF3-2A Gene in Wheat and Their Agronomic Value.

Mikhail Bazhenov,Mikhail Divashuk,Ludmila Bespalova,Nadezhda Polevikova,Tatiana Gritsay,Gennady Karlov,Anastasiya Chernook,Lubov Nazarova

doi:10.3390/ijms222212376

Abstract

The Growth-regulating factors (GRF) are a family of plant-specific transcription factors that have roles in plant growth, development and stress response. In this study the diversity of the TaGRF3-2A (TraesCS2A02G435100) gene was investigated in Russian bread wheat germplasm by means of next generation sequencing and molecular markers, and the results compared with those from multiple wheat genome and exome sequencing projects. The results showed that an allele possessing c.495G>T polymorphism found in Bezostaya 1 and designated as TaGRF3-2Ab, is connected with earlier heading and better grain filling under conditions of the Krasnodar Krai. TaGRF3-2Ab is more frequent among Russian winter wheat cultivars than in other germplasms found in the world, implying that it is adaptive for the Chernozem region. A new rare mutation of the TaGRF3-2A was found in the spring wheat cultivar Novosibirskaya 67. The molecular markers developed will facilitate utilization of TaGRF3-2A mutations in future agronomic studies and wheat improvement. Albeit GRF3-2Ab may be good at maintaining high milling quality of the grain, it should be used with caution in breeding of winter wheat cultivars in the perspective of climate change.

Highlights

As a result of the next-generation sequencing of the polymerase-chain-rection-amplicons of the TaGRF3-2A gene (TraesCS2A01G435100) and its flanking regions in 19 winter bread wheat cultivars (Table S1), and comparing them with the genome sequences of 13 more varieties that were included in the Wheat 10+ Genomes Project [16] and the genome of the Chinese Spring bread wheat [17], we found a total of
The T. urartu haplotype differed from the bread wheat haplotypes in multiple unique single-nucleotide variants, the haplotype of wild emmer had fewer differences, and the spelt haplotype did not have unique point mutations and differed only by a combination of the highly variable single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and the length of a microsatellite in the 50 untranslated regions (UTR)
When a pool of 199 winter bread wheat accessions was analyzed using this marker, A marker designed for detection of the c.495G>T mutation resulting in amino-acid we found that the variant T of the polymorphism c.495G>T inherent to GRF3-2Ab allele substitution, p.(Gln165His), was successfully validated on the DNA of wheat accession in was present in almost 39% of accessions (Table S5)

Summary

Introduction

Growth-Regulating Factors (GRF) are a family of plant-specific transcription factors (TF) that have roles in plant growth, development and stress response [1]. The first GRF gene was characterized in rice as a factor involved in stem elongation under flooding or in response to gibberellic acid [2]. Later the GRF TF genes were identified in the model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana, as well as a number of agricultural crops [1,3,4]. These genes are mainly expressed in young growing tissues and organs [1,3,5]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion