Abstract
BackgroundMonosomic alien addition lines (MAALs) can easily induce structural variation of chromosomes and have been used in crop breeding; however, it is unclear whether MAALs will induce drastic genetic and epigenetic alterations.Methodology/Principal FindingsIn the present study, wheat-rye 2R and 5R MAALs together with their selfed progeny and parental common wheat were investigated through amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and methylation-sensitive amplification polymorphism (MSAP) analyses. The MAALs in different generations displayed different genetic variations. Some progeny that only contained 42 wheat chromosomes showed great genetic/epigenetic alterations. Cryptic rye chromatin has introgressed into the wheat genome. However, one of the progeny that contained cryptic rye chromatin did not display outstanding genetic/epigenetic variation. 78 and 49 sequences were cloned from changed AFLP and MSAP bands, respectively. Blastn search indicated that almost half of them showed no significant similarity to known sequences. Retrotransposons were mainly involved in genetic and epigenetic variations. Genetic variations basically affected Gypsy-like retrotransposons, whereas epigenetic alterations affected Copia-like and Gypsy-like retrotransposons equally. Genetic and epigenetic variations seldom affected low-copy coding DNA sequences.Conclusions/SignificanceThe results in the present study provided direct evidence to illustrate that monosomic wheat-rye addition lines could induce different and drastic genetic/epigenetic variations and these variations might not be caused by introgression of rye chromatins into wheat. Therefore, MAALs may be directly used as an effective means to broaden the genetic diversity of common wheat.
Highlights
Modern cultivation procedures have narrowed the genetic base of common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)
Conclusions/Significance: The results in the present study provided direct evidence to illustrate that monosomic wheat-rye addition lines could induce different and drastic genetic/epigenetic variations and these variations might not be caused by introgression of rye chromatins into wheat
polymerase chain reaction (PCR) reaction using rye-specific marker produced the target bands in 2RF3MY-4 and 5RF3MY-1 (Figure 2). These results indicated that rye chromatins have already introgressed into wheat genome and they can not be detected by genomic in situ hybridization (GISH) analysis. 2RF3MY-4 and 5RF3MY-1 were still considered as the progeny that only contained 42 wheat chromosomes because they just contained cryptic rye chromatins
Summary
Modern cultivation procedures have narrowed the genetic base of common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). The structural variations of rye chromosomes in triticale were discovered [5,6,7,8]. Triticales are the beginning of introgression of rye chromatin into wheat genome and they were used to produce wheat-rye addition, substitution and translocation lines. Wheat-rye addition, substitution and translocation lines are the direct bridge materials for wheat improvement. The alterations of rye telomeric/subtelomeric heterochromatin were observed in several sets of wheat-rye disomic addition lines [9]. Chromosome instability and genome rearrangements in wheat-rye disomic addition lines were observed [10–. Monosomic alien addition lines (MAALs) can induce structural variation of chromosomes and have been used in crop breeding; it is unclear whether MAALs will induce drastic genetic and epigenetic alterations
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